


French Vanilla

by Word_Devourer



Series: Accelerated Canon [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, I tried to make sure other people appeared besides our main set, Original Flavor, Reveal, Was informed that I literally made someone want to ram their head into a wall from sheer frustration, With Moderate Success, You've got to go a ways to get to it, but it's in there, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-09 15:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14718345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Word_Devourer/pseuds/Word_Devourer
Summary: There's no AU here, no crack-ships, not even any crazy departures from the original show.  This is just more of those characters and interactions you crave, almost as if they were straight from unreleased episodes.What can you look for here?  You can look for hair-tearing obliviousness, new, challenging villains, and a whole lot of repressed attraction, which, as you might have guessed, will be significantly unrepressed by the end of things.





	1. Dungeon Master

**Author's Note:**

> So, you might be wondering why the series is called French Vanilla.  
> French Vanilla, as you're likely aware, is a flavor of ice cream, that is very similar to Vanilla, the most basic of the ice cream flavors, but with a subtle twist. That's this. This is like canon, but subtly distinct.  
> Also they're French.
> 
> Also, just so we're clear, we're assuming that there are many villains we don't see, so when I reference (Like, right away) Pair-a-dice, that is not a reference to some previous work you haven't read.

It had all started simply enough, just after an encounter with a villain known as ‘Pair-a-dice,’ who’d been bent on turning the whole city into a gambler’s dream after… Well, his motivation wasn’t important, he wasn’t much of a challenge, only took about 10 minutes to deal with, he’d just been a landmark to remember things by.

Cut to the next morning and Marinette had successfully woken up on time for once.  In fact, she’d even arrived to the school early.  She’d just been leaning back for a second just savoring things, when in walked trouble.

Well, more accurately, in walked Adrien, who was trouble enough for her heart, which immediately began to act like a dancer who’d been asked to juggle at the same time.

She couldn’t take her eyes off of him; her mind was just about ready to fall into that daze that he still elicited after all this time, but things immediately snapped back into focus as she noticed... Tape around an elbow, a bandage on his hand, dark bags around his eyes… He was _hurt;_ Not seriously, of course, but inexplicably, and it was the principle of the thing anyway.  He sat down one desk in front of her, as usual.

She hadn’t been the only one to notice.

“Dude, what happened to you?  Did you not sleep or something!” said Nino.

“Uhhm.  I was, up late, studying.”

“And your hand?  Did you get a cat or something?”

Adrien bristled, suddenly, “What?!”

“You know, scratches, on your hand?” he did a scratch motion.

“Oh.  No.  My pencil slipped.”

“And what happened to your elbow?”

Adrien put a hand over it, “…I don’t remember.  Probably hit it during fencing practice or something.”

Marinette perked up further at that.  His last fencing practice had been two days ago.  It seemed odd that he’d have only noticed it today if he’d had it all of yesterday.  In fact, now that she thought about it, he was tired, but he seemed more _confused_ about what had happened than made sense.  If she hadn’t known better, she’d guess he was hiding something.

She almost dismissed the thought out of habit (Adrien.  Really?), but, she considered, she kept her own secrets; there were certainly good reasons to do it.  But of course, this was _Adrien_ , son of a reclusive eccentric fashion designer or not, what secret would he even be keeping?

\--

He really needed to be more careful.  If he kept jumping every time someone said ‘Cat’ in a conversation with him, he was going to get caught.  His own paranoia was validating itself.  Okay, okay, it was fine.  He just had to remember that cats existed outside of his alter ego.  Then again, with any luck, his photographer would tell him to pick up a cat next time, to ‘spice things up,’ and then people would start trying to make him pose with cats, and, with any luck, try on a Cat Noir outfit and then…  Well, that was unlikely.

Still, it was fine.  It wasn’t like anyone suspected anything yet.

\--

It was definitely suspicious.  Strange injuries?  Never able to make it to school on time?  If she hadn’t known better, she’d say he was… Part of a secret fighting ring!?  No, no, that was stupid.  _Something_ was definitely up, though, and she couldn’t let that sit.  Whatever was happening, she needed to know about it.  After all, what was the use of being a superhero if you couldn’t help someone out?

For now, though, she had to make it through class.  She could do her investigations later.

\--

Right.  Class.  He could do that.

\--

It was later.  No villains had attacked today, nothing crazy had happened at school.  It had been almost normal.  Now was the tricky part.  No, not breaking in.  She could do that any day; the window was usually open, not that she’d… Well, okay, she’d once or twice found some pretense to walk by his house; maybe he’d be out and about and… Anyway.  The street near his house was always practically deserted.  Doubtless, there was security, but not _inside_ his room, surely, and if she did it right, she’d be inside before anyone could notice.  Nor was the hard part choosing the right time.  She knew his schedule inside and out, and it seemed unlikely there’d be anyone in there at 3:15.

No the hard part was-

“Are you _sure_ about this, Marinette?”

Tikki.  This was right on the edge of what she might be okay with.

“I have to do it.”

“But if he isn’t telling anyone, doesn’t that mean you’re intruding on his privacy?”

“What if he’s in trouble, though?  He got hurt!”

“He said it was at fencing practice!”

“Why would he have only noticed injuries from fencing practice two days later?”

“Maybe he’s just oblivious!  It wouldn’t be the first time he didn’t notice something right in front of him.”

Marinette blushed, then rallied.  “Maybe he doesn’t notice things, but I have to.  If something happened to him and I brushed it off because I thought he was being oblivious…  I still remember when Vulpina dropped him.” She shuddered.

“That was an illusion, Marinette.”

“I know, but it was too real.”

…

“But suppose you _do_ go through his room?  What are you hoping to learn?”

“I don’t know, _anything?_ Anything that can help him?”

Tikki took a long, slow breath, and looked at her strangely, almost sad.  “You’re always trying to help people, aren’t you, Marinette.”

She nodded.

“I can’t fault you for it…  Well, then,” she perked up again, “there’s no point wasting any more time, is there?”

Strange, but she wasn’t about to argue.  “Tikki, spots on!”

\--

Even a careful eye would barely have seen anything.  A blur on the cameras for a frame, maybe, or a shape that could be passed off as a particularly colorful bird diving at the window.  She was in.  She didn’t know what she was looking for; anything that pointed to trouble.

The room was as she remembered it; fit for a prince.  Clean, too.  Nothing on the walls; nothing on the floor.  It was sterile, like a display room.  It felt like it had never been lived in.  Nothing to see.  Nothing to hear. Nothing to… No, scratch that, she could smell something.  Coming from… There.

She pulled the cabinet open.

Cheese?

Just.  Cheese.

All of it was Camembert.

She stood there.

Cheese?

Really cheese?

She picked up one of the little packages.

Really cheese.

Now that she thought about it, he _did_ smell kind of like the stuff, but she never saw him eating it.

She shook it off, and put down the package she’d picked up.  Why he needed all of that cheese was beyond her, but that wasn’t what she was here for.

 

What _was_ she here for?  She’d said ‘anything,’ but what _was_ ‘anything,’ especially in such a carefully cleaned room?  A diary, of course, would probably tell her what she needed to know, but the very _thought_ of Adrien’s diary made her glad she was wearing a mask.  Could she even make herself read it?  Maybe.  Maybe she could, if she had to.

Either way, though, while she was here…

She opened the closet.

He had more than one outfit?  Well, that made sense, he was a _model_ after all, but it seemed like he only ever wore one.  For that matter, there were a few _copies_ of it, enough to keep them on rotation.  When did he wear all the different ones?  Maybe these were for _upcoming_ shoots?

Not important; she wasn’t here on curiosity, or like some kind of uninvited member of the paparazzi.  She was here to help, or, at least, to see what help she needed to give.

The piano held nothing of note.

His desk.  If there were any answers, she’d find them there.

It was as sterilized as everything else was.  No stains from spilt drinks, no pencils left out, no nothing.  The only obvious sign of a personal touch was the lock screen, when she moved the mouse.  It was a picture of him and Nino.  No password hint.  That was just the visible side, though; there were four drawers.

The first, was full of various documents; old school projects, a few odds and ends, nothing fancy, and certainly nothing current enough to be worthy of notice.  The second drawer was office supplies.  The third, a small wastepaper basket.

The fourth was the interesting one.  Inside, there was a thick folder, unmarked, and behind it, a small box, like… A jewelry box, black.  It was empty, but familiar…  Ah, right, Adrien wore a ring, and this must have been the box.  She’d sketched the ring once once or twice in class, mostly because it gave her an excuse to stare at his hand.  Hm.  And the folder…

She saw her own face when she opened it.  Not Marinette’s, Ladybug’s.  It was a short newspaper article, detailing the events of a villain attack.  She looked at the next one.  A blurred image of her and Cat Noir, in motion, falling or ascending, she couldn’t tell.  The next one, both of them again, and the next, just Cat Noir.  Then her, and then… She thumbed through them.  Some had been marked up.  One was the transcript of one of Alya’s posts, speculating on Ladybug’s identity.

Maybe she wouldn’t be able to skim his diary (If he even had one), just because it would be too personal, but if he had thoughts on Ladybug, that was sort of her business, right?  She _was_ Ladybug, after all.

 

Right, this article.  “ _So, here’s the best part.  I checked the book she was using, and it turns out it’s only in academic use at_ my school _.  Wild stuff, right?  For all I know, she’s one of my classmates!”_ There was a line from that, with a set of exclamation points circled.  _“I’m definitely going to be looking more into this.”_ The article went on a bit further, and he’d set a few question marks, mostly by things she herself would have questioned.

Next article; captured by an Egyptian god, Ladybug said she was far older…  She still doubted it.  Of course she doubted it.  Then, later, apparently following requests from the blog’s actually quite sizeable following, speculations on Cat Noir.  She’d read this, and all things considered, it matched up surprisingly well with what she’d seen of him.  The oddest part, actually, was how closely _Adrien’s_ marks matched up with what she’d seen, crossing out almost _exactly_ what she would have.  It seemed like whatever effort he’d put into this little pursuit, it had really paid off, like he really _understood_ them.  She was impressed.

 

Actually, with how well he seemed to know them, she could almost think that he… That he…  She stifled a giggle.  Adrien, wearing a catsuit, dropping pickup lines like greased cheese, which was to say, frequently, and cheesily (she could still smell the Camembert from here) and at _her_ , no less.  No, it made far more sense that he was just an insightful person.  After all, what was that kind of insight, if not empathy? And she’d already seen a lot of it from him.

 

A sound made her jump.  The sound of shoes on a hard surface.  Someone on the stairs.  She shuffled the folder into some semblance of what it had been, shoved it back in the drawer, closed it as quietly as circumstances would allow, and bolted.

\--

Adrien walked into his room, and shut the door behind him.  He wiped his forehead of sweat.  Fencing practice had been hard.

He was almost into the bathroom, ready to take a shower, when Plagg screamed.

Immediately, he stepped back out of the bathroom.  “What!?”

The cabinet door knocked open as the tiny figure rammed into it.  “Someone’s been messing with my Camembert!”

Adrien looked at the now open door.  There, as before, was the haphazard pile of cheese. “It looks alright to me.”

Plagg vigorously shook his head.  “Look closer; see this one here?”  He gestured, to a package on the top. “It _was_ over here,” he picked it up and put it down just to the side of where it was.  “No, wait,” he said.  He rotated it slightly, “ _Here._ ”

Now it was Adrien’s turn to shake his head, “you’re imagining things, Plagg.”

“I don’t make mistakes when Camembert is on the line.”

“Well, fine, maybe it was there before, but who would just _move_ a piece of cheese, and then just leave it?  If they were searching for something, they’d have moved _all_ of it to look, right?  But it’s just one chunk.”

“ _Just one chunk?  Just one chunk?_ Someone’s had their hands all over my delicious, gooey Camembert!  Maybe they just moved it around this time, but what about next time!?  What if they try to… To…”

“Take some?”

“Yeeesssss!!” he wailed, almost crying.

Adrien looked at him, then back at the bathroom.  “Look,” he said, “you keep worrying, but I’ve got to take a shower.”

“You walk away now, but this will come back to haunt yoooouuuuu-“

The bathroom door closed.

Adrien smiled and rolled his eyes.  “Cheese thieves.”  He laughed.

 

He didn’t have anything to do until dinner, which would probably be in just under an hour; maybe his father would be there tonight?

-

“… _Such easy prey for my little akumas…”_

_-_

His father would not be there tonight…

\--

Marinette breathed, slowly and deeply, trying to calm herself back to her normal breathing.  It was a little bit nerve-wracking to almost get caught like that.  Still, she’d made it out alright, and nobody had seen her, right?  It had been a total success, from that end.  Of course, she hadn’t found anything of note, really.  Maybe she really _was_ imagining things, but it still felt justified to check, just in case.

 

Now, her superhero business was done, for the moment, and she had homework to do.

\--

 _“Dungeon Master, I am Hawk Moth.  Your friends forsook you when they discovered your truly devious nature.  I, however, know a few players who will_ happily _play their way through whatever traps you can devise.  And when they fail, you will give_ me _a treasure_ they _possess; their_ Miraculouses _!”_

 _“It’s a deal, but don’t call me Dungeon Master, for_ this _one, I’ll go by ‘Dridak, the Wizard.”_

\--

Adrien had just about finished his shower when he heard the shockwave.

“Plaaaggg!?”

“Yeah, yeah,” came the voice, a bit indistinct, “just let me finish up my-“

“Claws out!”

 

He should have turned off the shower first; cats hate being wet.

A thoroughly soaked Cat Noir fumbled around with the tap.  Now…  Where had that shockwave come from?  Akuma or random disaster?

Though he wouldn’t admit it, he was hoping for an Akuma.  Akumas, he couldn’t handle by himself.  An Akuma meant Ladybug would have to be there, for the second time in two days. 

He grinned at the thought, and dove out of the window, not even scraping the sides.  In a second, he was up and away.

 

Now… Where had that sound come from?  No, scratch that, he could see _exactly_ where it must have come from.  There was a tower, rising in the middle of the city, tall and imposing.  Its walls were made of a dark stone.  He could hear the rumbling from here, as it slowly and monolithically rose from the earth.

Roofs flew past below him.

\--

She was exceptionally out of breath by now, but she’d made it; a big square right in the middle of the city.  She managed to pull her phone out, and start a recording.

-

_The image was blurry, and then focused on a tall figure in armor.  They stood in front of a massive set of doors, holding a scroll.  They carried no weapon, but were imposing, nonetheless._

_“Alright, guys,” said the holder of the phone, “I was lucky enough to be close, which means we should see the whole thing.  If I’ve really gotten a feel for their timings, and I like to think I do, we should be expecting them any second now.”  A few seconds pass, and the camera slumps, as the holder wheezes faintly.  Shortly, though, she straightens up._

_“Actually, if we’ve got a few minutes…”_

_The camera moves forward, closer to the figure._

_“Hello?” says the voice._

_With a jerky, almost mechanical nature, the figure turns its head, and unfurls the scroll.  “If ever the captives are to be rescued, two champions must enter, strong and willing.”_

_“Captives?”_

_“They are held at the top of the tower.”_

_“Who are they?”_

_“Traitors.”_

_There’s a soft thudding noise, and the camera swings._

_“Cat Noir!”_

_He nods, and looks back and forth between the speaker and the guard.  He seems almost confused._

_“He wants you and Ladybug to go in. ‘Champions’ he said.”  There’s a red blur behind him._

_“Where’s Ladybug?”_

_“Here.”_

_\--_

Alya grinned, unable to resist, seeing them in front of her.  It still made her happy just to know that Ladybug knew her by name, and to let her use a Miraculous, even just once… A real privilege.

She repeated herself.  “He’s definitely angling for you two,” she says.  “Oh, and he has ‘captives,’ so you probably need to hurry.”

“Can’t we just, I don’t know, climb up, have me Cataclysm a way in, and then go from there?”

“No windows, no ledges, nothing to grab on to.  We can’t get up high enough, and I don’t want to start things with you on a timer.”

“We could use a helicopter?”

“Do _you_ know where to get a helicopter?”

“…”

“We don’t have time, anyway.  We don’t know what will happen to those ‘Captives’ if we wait, and I don’t want to find out.”

They nod to each other, and step forward.

“Are you the champions, strong and willing?”

Ladybug nodded.

“Then enter.”

They walked through the doors, which shut behind them in an instant.

Alya turned the camera on herself for a second, and says, “I don’t think I’ll be able to see much out here, so until they come back, this is Alya Cesaire, signing off!”

\--

The room was dark for a moment, but was suddenly lit up by torches on the walls.  A group of strange, inhuman creatures barred their way, some armed.  A pedestal sat in the middle of the room, empty.

“They look like… Goblins?”  At the word, the goblins charged.

Several fell immediately, but with how many there were, they had to retreat to higher ground.

Hanging from a torch, they were just about out of reach, but still, they jumped and their hands came uncomfortably close.

“Well?  What do we do?”

They looked around, occasionally taking a second to kick back a particularly agile goblin.

“The pedestal!”  There was a line of light next to it, curving as if to wrap around.  “I’ve got an idea.”

One goblin, one foot to the face.

Sure enough, the light wrapped a little further around.

“We’ve got to fight our way through.”

“Then this’ll take a while.”

_\--_

“You stand before Dridak, almighty wizard!”

It _had_ taken a while.  There had been three rooms after the first, each more difficult than the last, some with puzzles and traps, others with monsters.

He looked down at his tome for a moment, and whispered something under his breath.  A shape they’d recently been acquainted with, a massive troll, formed in the air.

“In the book,” murmured Ladybug.

“I bet.”

The troll was fully formed, but he hadn’t stopped, and was still muttering under his breath.

“We can’t let him keep going; we have to break his concentration, and I know how to do it.”  Cat Noir rushed forward to block the troll’s massive fist.  “He’s invested in those hostages; if you can get them out, getting them back should be his top priority.”

He nodded.

“On my mark… Switch!”

The troll flopped to the ground, pulled off balance by a wire that had suddenly found a way around its leg.  “Hey!”  The wizard looked up, still mouthing words.

The troll caught the yoyo as it rushed towards the wizard’s face.

“Oh, you’ll have to do better than that,” he said, and promptly resumed his casting.

“No, I won’t.  Because I’m not alone.”

“CATACLYSM!”

Dridak’s head snapped to Cat Noir at that.

“My prisoners!” He flung a ball of force.  Cat Noir’s hand latched onto the chain just as the ball hit him.  With a strange, otherworldly jerk, he slammed into the wall, just between two of the wizard’s former players.

“Cat Noir!” shouted Ladybug, reaching a hand out as if to take back what had just happened.  No.  He wasn’t out.  His lip was bleeding, and he looked confused, but still very much alive.

He looked up at her, and she saw his eyes widen.

“DUCK!”  He leaped at her, and she dove to the side.  He’d caught the troll’s fist with his baton, again, but this time, unprepared, his arms didn’t hold the blow.  The flat of his baton landed in his chest, and he fell back, against the wall again.

She could hear him groan from where she was.  This wizard was still trying to cast something.

There was no time, she had to finish this _now_ before her friend got hurt further.

“Lucky Charm!”

What plopped into her hand was small, round.  Squishy.  It wasn’t a complicated trick; it didn’t have time to be.  She fastballed the water balloon at the wizard, and smacked the back of the troll’s head with her yoyo.  Just in time.  Cat Noir couldn’t handle another hit like that.

The troll turned to her, and so did Dridak.  She’d distracted him alright, both of them for that matter, but now Cat Noir really _was_ out of the fight, and she couldn’t handle both of them at once.

Lucky Charm and Cataclysm were both out of the question.  She needed something to-

A roll left, and the troll, faster than it had any right to be, slammed a fist into the floor.  It was already rounding on her, coming back up.

She didn’t have time to think, just avoiding the attacks.  She couldn’t block, and more than Cat Noir had, and she didn’t have time to go after the wizard.

\--

His character had been loosely based on Ladybug, was the first thought that jumped to his mind.  He hadn’t taken her design wholesale, but here and there, a little reference.  That wasn’t important, though, not right now.  Cat Noir had been knocked out of the fight setting them free, and Ladybug was indisposed.  He couldn’t let that sacrifice be in vain.

He might look like a wizard, he might even _be_ a wizard, but that was still just his friend, with the same love for tricks and traps, and he could _work_ with that.

“Hey,” he said, “Mind if I ask a question out of character?”  He could feel the eyes of his fellow players on his back.

‘Dridak’, looked up from his tome, “Shoot.”  His voice was, for a second, his own.

“Have you ever wondered why you make such hard dungeons?”

“They’re fun _because_ they’re hard.  Your characters are in _actual_ danger, and you have to think on your toes to win.”  His hand came off the book for a gesture.

“That’s an interesting-

Something happened; There was a shift in his face, a shadow.

“Of course I don’t want to risk the victory, but he’s not asking for _spoilers,_ he’s just trying to understand the thematic design of the dungeon, which seems only fair considering-“  something cut him off.  The voice of Dridak returned, “No.  Of course, I’ll take them out myself.  A fireball should finish the-

Again, he was cut off, this time by his friend tackling him.

“She said it was in the book!” he shouted, trying to pull it away, “and if there’s one thing I know about wizards,” he yanked the book free and stood up, “It’s that they almost never build for strength.”  He pulled at the two covers of the tome.  It didn’t budge.  Another pull, and it began to tear at the edges.  Ladybug was in a corner now.  One more pull, and the book split down the middle.  The ogre disintegrated.  “I mean,” he said, “neither did I, but still better than you did.”

A strange, spotted butterfly flapped up from the halves of the book.

Ladybug dashed forward.

“No more evildoing for you!” she said, her yoyo snapping it from the air.  A second later, it returned again, this time a bright, pure white.  “Bye-bye little butterfly,” she said, almost fondly.

“Now where’d I leave…?” she said, looking around.  After a second, she came back with a piece of rubber.  She flung it in the air.  “Miraculous Ladybug!”

\--

Everything dissolved around her, and before she knew it, she was standing back in the middle of the square.

Alya was already running up to meet her.  By the beeping in her ears, she still had a bit, but it didn’t make sense to cut things closer than she needed too.

She had just enough time to offer an earnest ‘Thank you,’ to the one who’d destroyed the book, before remembering. Where was Cat Noir?

There.  Lying on the ground, sitting up, groaning.  He was trying to grin, but the expression was wavering on his face.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said, “just bruised.”

“You got pretty beat up in there, are you sure…?”

“Yeah,” he said, staggering to his feet, “sometimes you just gotta get a bit beat up to win, y’know?”

She grimaced. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I was careless, and you took the hit for it.”

He chuckled, and then coughed.  “Don’t worry about it.  The last thing I want is for you to beat yourself up for not getting beaten up.”  He looked down at his ring.  “I’ve got to go; I’m almost out of time.”  He took a step back, ready to jump.

“Are you sure that you’re really okay?”

He looked back at her, and with a genuine smile this time, said, “I’m fine.  Any day’s a good day when I get to talk to you, milady.”  Then he was gone, bounding away over the rooftops.

Ladybug glanced at Alya’s hands.  She hadn’t been recording that.

“He’s smooth, you’ve gotta give him that,” said Alya

He really was, in a cheesy way.  Greased cheese.

In the silence, her earrings beeped.  She was low on time.

“I have to go,” she said.

Alya just nodded.  She was up and away, following much the same path Cat Noir had just taken.

\--

Alya sat back down.

“Wish I’d been recording that,” she said.  She looked at her phone clock.  “Waited a full hour for nothing.”  It wasn’t _really for_ nothing, of course; she’d gotten valuable information out of it.  Ladybug couldn’t tell her who she was, just for information security, and to keep _her_ safe _. She_ knew, though, that she wouldn’t tell anyone, not even Marinette, and if nobody knew that _she_ knew, nobody could target her for it.  Better yet, if she knew, she could help Ladybug when she really needed it.

To that end, she was slowly triangulating Ladybug’s home address.  A bit creepy, of course, but the odds she actually _knew_ Ladybug’s alter ego were slim, potentially going to the same school aside.  If she could find the area, she could camp it after an Akuma attack, spot Ladybug on her return journey, find the building she returned to, and from there…

From there, keep the information private until it became absolutely necessary to use it.  That was the only responsible way to handle it, however satisfying it would be to tell her followers about it.  In the meantime, the Ladyblog would have to deal with a few missed attacks.

\--

Marinette was not well.

She was unharmed, but that was because Cat Noir had taken the hit for her.  He hadn’t even had time to think about it, he’d just done it on instinct.  Now he was bruised and in pain, and seemed to think it was fine because he’d done it for her.  He’d said to _her,_ Marinette, that he really did care about Ladybug, and he’d meant it.  She knew he had.  The thing was, having that kind of sway over someone was terrifying.  It was also, though she could barely make herself think about it, more than a bit flattering.  The bit of her mind that had been pleased beyond her wishes with hearing that Cat Noir really _did_ love Ladybug was happier still about this, and it was only through concerted effort that she kept it in line.  She had her priorities, and as far as romance went, Cat Noir was _not_ at the top, and as such, wasn’t even supposed to _be_ on the list.

The only consolation she had was that _maybe_ it was just in his nature to take a hit for anyone, Ladybug or not, but there had been a look in his eyes…

The whole thing was exhausting.  She had homework to do, of course, and that would be more effort, but maybe it would help her stop thinking about the whole thing.

**\--**

Adrien’s window was locked.  That was his first hint that something was off.  He had to take the front door, and his first sight was Natalie.  She first looked relieved, and then stern, and then concerned.

“Where have you been?”

He’d been ready for that, “I just wanted to go for a walk.”

“And how did you get hurt?”

She couldn’t see the half of it.  “I tripped,” he said.

She sighed.  “I hope you realize what a difficult situation you put me when you leave like that.  If your father had asked me where you were, what would I have told him?”

 _“If_ he had asked?  I guess he didn’t show up for dinner again.”

Natalie sighed again.  “He’s a busy man, Adrien.”

“Yeah.  He is.”

She didn’t press the issue.  He didn’t press the issue.  He just went back to his room.

\--

Natalie watched him walk away.

She’d been lucky thus far, she thought. Mr. Agreste was often busy, and he’d only _once_ gone looking for Adrien when he was missing.  Adrien _was_ missing a lot, too.  She had a good ear for recorded music and silence; it was _too_ correct, or _too_ quiet.  Adrien had gone missing at least a few times recently, and she shuddered to think what would have happened if Mr. Agreste had timed one of his sporadic visits...

She couldn’t stop him from leaving in any meaningful way.  She couldn’t tell Mr. Agreste without implying an uncomfortable amount of knowledge.  She didn’t dare even allude to the idea that perhaps he should interact with his son more often, however many problems it could solve.  She was an assistant, not a consultant or advisor.  ‘An assistant, not a consultant or an advisor.’  She’d repeated those words to herself more times than she could count.  Often, when she realized the thought had found a way in, despite her strongest measures, she’d had to add, ‘Nor an adoptive mother.’  Adrien was her employer, just as much as his father was.  Still, when his father paid him so little notice, and he snuck out, returning bruised and dejected, it was hard to remember that.

If she’d had the choice… But she didn’t.  That was what she had to remember.

\--

It was later now.  Adrien hadn’t been able to get the whole thing out of his head.  It hadn’t helped that he wasn’t comfortable in his bed no matter how he was lying (There was a thick greenish-grey line across his chest, and a patch of blue on his ribs).  His mind wouldn’t let it go.  He could only think of one solution.  It was only, what, 8?  The sun had just gone down.

\--

She heard the impact of feet on her ceiling.  Nothing, and then, a polite knock on the trapdoor.  There was only one person that could be.

She opened the door, and saw a dark silhouette against the night sky.  It would have been menacing if it hadn’t been-

“Cat Noir!”

“Hey,” he said, “Sorry to bother you, but I wanted to talk to someone, and, well, I already _know_ you.”

“Of course,” she said.

She climbed up, and gestured to a seat.

He sat down, with a grimace.

“Are you alright?”

“Just bruising.  It hurts, but I’ll be fine.”

They sat in silence for a while.

Eventually, after what felt like almost a minute, he said, suddenly, “do you ever feel invisible?”

She looked over at him.  “Do you?”

He shrugged.  “I mean, I’m a superhero, it’s kind of as public as it gets, but that’s not what I mean.  It’s more like, do you feel like one person, someone who really _should_ see you, just doesn’t?”

Marinette’s heart sank.  She did know exactly that feeling.  “Is this about Ladybug?”

He looked up at her.  “No!  No.  She’s one of my best friends, and if she doesn’t like me like _that_ , well, at least she’s a friend.” He smiled, and then the smile dropped.  “I’m talking about someone in my other life.”

That was a relief.  “… Yeah.  I know what that’s like.”

He nodded.  “Hm.  I guess that’s all I can really ask you, isn’t it?  I can’t go into any more detail without giving something away, and it’d be rude to ask _you_ any more if I can’t say anything.”

…

“It’s nice to have someone who knows the feeling, though.”

 

They sat there for a long time.

 

Eventually, Cat Noir said, “Guess I’m not the best at conversation.  I came to talk, and then didn’t really say anything.”

Marinette didn’t say anything.

“ _And_ I’m keeping you up late,” he added, standing up.  “I’m sorry.  I’ll go.”

“Cat Noir!” she said.  He turned back.  “It’s fine.  We can’t really tell each other our secrets, but at least both of us knows that the other one _has_ secrets.  It’s kind of the same thing, right?”

He cocked his head.

“Feel free to come visit any time.”

“You’re pretty cool, Marinette,” he said, smiling faintly, “you know that, right?”


	2. Banshee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nino finds an extremely convenient coincidence. Marinette is permanently terrified, but also very excited. Adrien knows how to take gift-giving advice. Alya pulls out all the stops. Twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote these chapters with the premise that they'd go between episodes. For instance, this one starts just after the previous episode (Hence Adrien still being injured), and ends some time after Captain Hardrock.

In all truth, it had been a matter of chance.  When Alya came in to school that morning, she’d been mulling over something she’d already sort of known; Cat Noir and Ladybug _both_ returned to _this_ area when they were done with a villain.  It wasn’t 100% of the time, but they still came back often enough to make her think that they probably lived around here.  By some quirk of fate, she’d just been remembering yesterday’s events when Adrien walked in.  His lip was busted open, and he had a bruise on his cheek.

The thought wasn’t a shock; it wasn’t a bolt from the blue.  It just appeared in her mind silently, like a bubble popping.  ‘ _Adrien could be Cat Noir’._   She blinked.  That couldn’t be right, could it?  Just a coincidental injury, right?

Another stroke of luck; she didn’t even need to ask where he’d gotten the injury, because Nino, bless his heart, was being a concerned friend.

“I was running yesterday, and I fell,” said Adrien, with a bashful smile.

Nasty bruise for that, but it was plausible enough.

Hm.  There was a simple enough way to check a bit closer; she just had to find the right reason to…

She knocked him on the shoulder, and was rewarded with a stifled groan.  The injuries went further than he was letting on.

“Yeah?” he said, turning around with a friendly smile.

“What did you end up getting for number 3?” she asked.

“Oh!  Um,” he turned away, “Hm.  I.  Um.  I don’t think I actually did the homework.”

“Better get on it then,” she said, in her best admonishing tone, “you’ve only got, like 5 minutes.”

“I got, uh, B?” said Nino.

“Yeah.  B,” said Marinette.

Marinette and Nino _both_ would probably ask her why she’d asked Adrien first.  He’d looked down, she’d probably say, and she’d just wondered if he was tired or feeling out of it.

She had something important enough to risk a few awkward questions.  On the downside, she couldn’t tell even Marinette.  She’d promised she wouldn’t share information about identities, and if it turned out, against all odds, that she was right, telling Marinette would be already breaking her conviction.  Besides, Marinette had already stated her disbelief for the idea, the _last_ time Alya had jokingly mentioned it.  She didn’t need that particular energy right now.

\--

Nino hadn’t seen much of his friend recently.  They’d been busy, and Adrien hadn’t been online, which was, unfortunately, most of how they communicated (problems of having a friend with a restrictive family).  It was lunch, which was one of the few times they actually got to talk.

“You gonna be on tonight?”

Adrien took a bite of his lunch, and nodded slowly.  “I think so.”

“Sweet.  You know the ‘Grey Lands’ update I kept telling you about last week, right?  Well, they actually released it, and I was thinking we could check out the new stuff.”

“When did that happen?”

“Day before yesterday.  Thought it’d be more fun to crack it open together.”

Adrien grinned.  “Alright!”  he paused, “sorry I’ve been so busy.”

“No big.  It’s been a busy week all around.  I’ve been busy, you’ve been busy.  Heck!  There were two villain attacks back to back!  I think _everyone’s_ been pretty busy.”

…

“Huh.”

“What?”

“I was thinking about villains; like, all the villains that have already attacked, you know?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I realized; there have been a _lot_ from here at school.  Paris is a big city, but we’ve still…  Like, _I_ was one. Alya was another...  Alix, Nathanael,” he started counting on his fingers, “Kim, Max, _Chloe, Sabrina…_ Uhhh… Right.  Both Rose _and_ Juleka, Mylene…  Ivan!  That’s like, literally everyone in class.  Except you.”

He stopped.  “Wait.”  He counted them back on his fingers.  “Someone else.  Who else didn’t get Akumatized?”  He looked around.  “ _Right!_   Marinette.  Literally, it’s just you and Marinette who haven’t been villains yet, in our _entire_ homeroom.”

…  “Huh.”

“Pretty weird, right?”

Adrien shoved the remainder of his sandwich into his mouth, and mumbled something through it.  He pointed to his mouth as if to say, “Sorry, can’t talk.  I’m eating.”

Nino didn’t press the question.  He was busy considering something.  Alya had made him one standing request, after he’d joined the group of people who knew about Marinette’s crush on Adrien.  Alya’s job was to wingman, or, well, wingwoman, for Marinette.  Nino was (unofficially, of course) supposed to join in on _that_ particular Sisyphean struggle.

“You know,” he said, eventually, “seems pretty cool to be in the last two people standing, right?”

Adrien turned to him.  “I guess?”

“Could be fun to have, like, a little celebration, or something.  Y’know, for you and Marinette?”

Adrien shrugged.  “I guess so, yeah.”

He began nodding, “bring in some little gifts, or something.  Maybe even take bets on who’ll be the _real_ last person standing.  Well, Kim and Max will, I don’t know about the rest of us.”

Adrien laughed.  “My money’s on Marinette.”

“What do you think?”

“Sure.  It sounds like fun.  I mean, we’d need Marinette’s permission, of course, but after that.”

“I’ll probably leave the talking to her to Alya.  She knows Marinette better than _I_ do, if she’ll accept the idea from anyone, it’ll be from Alya.”

Adrien nodded.

Nino carefully avoided a fist pump.

\--

Alya was looking at something on her screen.  Marinette wasn’t paying too much attention to that; she was too busy with her rolls.  A bit of butter, a bit of homecooked love.  Delicious.

Alya perked up next to her, and then, after a few seconds, slowly started nodding.

“Nice!” She said.

“Mm?”

Alya turned to face her, and put on that voice she used when she was about to reveal something, like a salesman who always has a ‘Wait, there’s more’ in their back pocket.

“How would you feel about a little party, where you and Adrien are the guests of honor?”

“What?” Her face was already going red.  She recovered enough to say, “Why?  How?  Why would he ever agree to that?”

Alya grinned, and turned her phone to face Marinette.  “He already has, and he’s just waiting on _you_ to say yes _._ ”

Her face was full, burning red now, and it didn’t slack as she read the short exchange between Alya and Nino.

“Easy, girl.”

“Hhhh.”

“Should I take that as a yes?”

“MMMMmmmmMmmm…”

“Gonna need a little better than that.”

In the end, it took about a minute for Marinette to calm down enough to speak, and another two for her to rattle through all of the things that could go wrong, and how much of a fool she could make of herself. Another 20 seconds for Alya to point out how if she wanted anything to _do_ with Adrien, she kind of had to _interact with him_ , and that this was a perfect opportunity, about 5 seconds to raise her eyebrows once or twice. _Another_ 20 seconds for Marinette.exe to not respond, and then a full five seconds for her to frantically nod.

“Great!” said Alya, as if the whole exchange had taken ten seconds, already keying the response into her phone.

“Wait!” said Marinette, but-

“Too late!  Already sent.”

Marinette opened her mouth.

“Don’t scream,” said Alya.

Marinette froze, and then, slowly and deliberately, closed her mouth.  They were in the middle of lunch.  Adrien was right over there.

…

Alya’s phone beeped again, and she looked down at it.  “By the way; according to Nino,” said Alya.  “It’s actually to celebrate how you two are the last people in the whole homeroom who haven’t been Akumatized.  That’s a free conversation topic right there!  There’ve been so many villains from the school, and you can talk about, I don’t know, where you were when they hit, some of the memories you’ve got, that sort of thing.”

Marinette kept her mouth shut, this time, but stared into the distance.  This entire situation had just gotten _so_ much worse.  “Oh…!  Good…  That’ll be great…!”

\--

It was a week and a half later.  The villains hadn’t stopped in the meantime.  There had been the whole thing with ‘Captain Hardrock.’  The villains weren’t Marinette’s biggest concern, though.  She was going to talk to Adrien, face to face, _over cupcakes.  Her_ cupcakes, homemade.  Apparently he was going to have a gift for _her_ too, but she’d been advised not to ask about it.  The whole thing had left a twist in her guts, and after meeting Luka, it had gotten so strong for a few days that she’d almost called the whole thing off.  The momentum wasn’t lost so easily, though, and, she realized, whatever she thought of Luka, she knew how she felt about Adrien.  That particular emotion was buried in her heart, bending the rest of her around it.  She couldn’t _not_ go for this.

The cupcakes were on a nearby table, and lunch started in a few minutes. 

\--

Gabriel Agreste had finally gotten up.  He swapped out his robe for his traditional suit.  It was an old design, but, as far as he was concerned, it never went out of style (As far as anyone else was concerned…. Well.)  Shoes on, and it was time for his morning affirmations.

“Persistence is the greatest factor for success; I only fail when I quit.  Nobody can win every day, neither I, nor my enemies.  Today will be my day.  I will make today _my_ day.”  He’d long ago taken up a very active lifestyle of positivity, which he started in the morning.  It was how he’d gotten this far in life, and probably the only reason he still hadn’t given up on getting the Miraculous.

He had a few designs he wanted to work on today, but before that, he had his personal project to attend to.  Surely somewhere in Paris there were a few broken hearts, a few balled fists, something he could work with.  He could already feel the Miraculous in his hand.

He was looking forward to a productive day of work.

…

As he slid into his private room, he breathed deeply.  He wanted to take on some particularly outlandish designs for a line of men’s purses, but that would have to wait.  Right now…

“Hmm…  I feel it now.  Fury, indignation, and underneath it, just a _hint_ of loneliness.  And… Oh my!  It appears we have a repeat guest.  Well, far be it from me to reject a loyal user.  Fly away, my little Akuma, and _evilize her._ ”

\--

Chloe had stormed into the cafeteria, only to find it empty.  Her entire class had _ditched_ her, and run off to who knows where, for who knows what.  Nino had mentioned some unofficial beauty contest in the auditorium, and she, like… Like... Like the beautiful person she was, had thought it a grand shame not to have _her_ there, winning first place.  So, of course, she’d rushed off to crash the party, only to find the auditorium empty.  When she returned to the cafeteria, _it_ had been empty too.  Sabrina was still somewhere behind her, but she didn’t matter right now, any more than she ever did.  This had been some kind of setup.  She could smell it.  It was enough to drive her, the great and loveable Chloe, to rage.

Sabrina, useless, worthless Sabrina, finally made it to the room, staggering in with no air in her lungs.  She noticed the state of things, and looked up.

“Chloe! What.  Happened?”

Chloe rounded on her.  “What _happened?_   I’ve been ditched!  Left!  _That’s what happened!”_

“Oh!”

“Oh?”  she sneered, “OH!?  That’s all you have to say, is ‘oh’?” She stepped forward, and grabbed Sabrina by the collar.  “Not good enough.  They’re going to pay for this!”  
“Who?”

“All of them!”

There was a sound, a strange, oddly mechanical noise.  There was the oddest sensation in her arms, and then all through her body.

They stared into each other’s eyes, but neither of them could see the other.  All they could see was-

“A two for one deal?  It really _is_ my day.  I think I’ve already met both of you.  You know how this little deal works.  You get your revenge, and in exchange, I get Ladybug and Cat Noir’s Miraculous.”

Chloe bared her teeth, not really a smile, and Sabrina pursed her lips and nodded.

“Excellent.  Then welcome to the world, Banshee.”

The strange hissing was back, but after a second she… They?  _She_ had more important things to care about.  Revenge.

\--

Oh this was perfect.  A fused villain, with the Akuma safely hidden in their interstice.  Every second, it grew harder to remove, and _soon…_

\--

They’d sequestered themselves in their homeroom, out of sight of the halls.  There was a quiet murmur of conversation.  Marinette had, of course, been located at their own table.  It wasn’t across from each other, though.  It was next to each other.  On the other table hung a sign that said, “Last Survivors.”  A bit grim, but accurate, Marinette supposed.  More to the point, she was sitting _next to Adrien_.  It was like being next to a bonfire; she had stopped blushing a bit ago, but it was still terrifying.

“Well!” said Alya, “I think it’s time we give a little real recognition to the _last two people in this class_ who haven’t tried to take over Paris.  However, if you think this is just a little celebration,” she turned to where they were sitting, “You’d be wrong.  This is only _partially_ about that. But we think we need a bit of an explanation.”

Marinette bristled, and vaguely noticed Adrien jump too.

Alya strode up to them, and said, “How have you made it _this_ long, and how do you intend to outlast each other?”

Kim and Max were in a quiet but heated debate on the odds.

“I think,” said Marinette, “that the major way is by trying to stay positive.  The villains are always the ones with so much trouble in their lives that they lose their heads.  I’ve been lucky.  I’ve dodged a lot of trouble.”

“Excellent answer!” it was like talking to a gameshow host, all she was missing was a microphone.  If the Ladyblog ever went down, she could probably try her luck on live TV.

“Now, to you Mr. Agreste, same question.”

Marinette looked over at him, and saw, faintly, that his neck was tensed.

“I… Think,” he said.  “I think, that what Marinette said is absolutely correct and that it really comes down to luck which of us won’t be Akumatized.”

“Well, you heard it here first, folks,” said Alya, turning, “positive thinking and good luck.”

She went over to a table, where, “as an added bonus, Marinette has brought her own homemade cupcakes, and remember, she’s a baker’s daughter, so you can bet they’ll be delicious.”

\--

Alya had gotten, possibly, a little too into this, but at this point, she didn’t really care.  Marinette was her best friend, even if she was a little _obsessed_ , and she deserved something nice every now and then.  A party in her honor seemed only appropriate.  Alya brought out the cupcakes, and passed them around.  There was a chorus of ‘Thanks, Marinette.’  She placed one in front of each of their guests of honor.  She gave Marinette a wink as she passed by.  She’d arranged one last thing, and it was the one she was most proud of.

“This is delicious!” she heard Adrien say, and then, “Oh!  By the way, I don’t know if you heard about this, but Alya mentioned that you were bringing in sort of a gift, and I honestly didn’t have any idea what to bring.”

“Oh?”  Alya was facing away from them now, grinning almost too wide for her face.  She slowly, slowly, _slowly,_ walked away.  She needed to hear Marinette’s reaction.

“She said that since you were bringing something from _your_ family business, I should bring something from mine.”

“Oh!?” there was a note of panic in her voice.

“And she also told me that you’ve been having trouble with art class because nobody-

The door slammed open.

Every head turned, and saw…  Something awful.  It was a shivering, crackling abomination.  It’s skin was patchy, as if stitched from two cloths.  Its eyes were different colors, and its hair was oddly mixed, parts of it were an unnatural blond, and others were a bright red.  It seemed like someone had tried to draw a child of two people, without understanding how children worked.  It had a strange grey color, too.  Most inhuman, though, there were long, sharp fangs where an ordinary human would have teeth, and those long, talon-like fingers.

Alya fumbled for her phone.  She _had_ to record this for the Ladyblog.

She had barely gotten her hand to her pocket, when the monster let out a sound that didn’t belong in reality.  It sounded like the scream of the unquiet dead, and as it cut through the air, Her phone vanished from her mind.  Some part of her mind, long forgotten, wrenched her by the guts.  The cupcakes didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered except getting as far away from that sound as possible.  She ran.  They all ran.  Tables overturned, cupcakes left on the ground.  And then she saw, from the corner of her eyes, Marinette and Adrien, both fumbling over themselves to get away from the table _she_ had set them at, boxed in and trapped.

Without her input, her legs stopped.  With a body shaking effort, she turned around.

The thing was advancing.  “ _WITHOUT ME!?  WITHOUT ME!!??_ ”  it said in an inhumanly shrill voice.  Its eyes were fixed on Marinette, and its mouth opened, revealing the whole length of the fangs.  The whole body coiled.

Alya sprang, _towards_ her, just as _she_ made her leap for Marinette and Adrien.  She got an elbow in the thing’s cheek, and it collided with the wall.  There was an electric crackle, and as the Banshee rose again, it was different; It was like a stirred pot.  Everything was still there, but differently arranged.  The patches in the hair were in different places; her eyes had switched colors

Alya looked at the Banshee, and then down at her friends.  She couldn’t let Marinette stay, and Adrien… Well, if he really was Cat Noir, he needed time to transform.

“Get out.  I’ll hold her off,” she said with confidence she didn’t have.

They hesitated for a second, and then both bolted.

Alya did not have fighting experience, if she didn’t count being Rena Rouge once, when she hadn’t really even ’fought’ per se, and roughhousing with her siblings, which could hardly count, considering how small they were.

Then again…  She didn’t have to win; She just had to keep away from those fangs until help arrived.

The Banshee screamed again, but she was ready for it this time.  She put her hands up as if to ward the sound off.

“You’re not so tough,” she lied when the scream ended, for her own sake as much as anything.  “You can yell. you can jump.  Well what’s new, so can I!”

This was apparently unacceptable.  In the blink of an eye her enemy was upon her.  She put up her hands, and by chance knocked her away.

“Without me?” hissed the Banshee.  “Without me!?”

“Is that all you can say?” said Alya.

The Banshee laughed.  “ _Is that all you can say?”_ She lunged again, and this time, when Alya tried to dodge, she caught on to her arms.  “You won’t be saying much when _I’m_ done with you!”

Her teeth came uncomfortably close to Alya’s throat, but with a wrench, she pulled her already grabbed hand across, and knocked her jaw.  Another crackle, and the patchwork had shifted again.  For a second, she seemed confused, and Alya seized the chance to knock her again.  Another hit, and another one.

The Banshee regained herself, and with an unexpected strength, rammed Alya’s wrists down to the ground.

“You’re through!” she said, and screamed again.  It still hit the same, deep, adrenal response, but this time…

Alya screamed back in her face, and for a moment, she recoiled.  Alya used this opportunity to put another fist in her face.

Still, struggle though she might, the Banshee had recovered herself, and slammed her one free hand back down.  Those fangs were making their way for her throat again.  She wrenched to either side, and tried to force the Banshee off of her, but to no avail.

She could, for an instant, feel warm breath at her throat.

Then, something seemed to fly at the corner of her vision, and with a satisfying thunk, the Banshee let out a pained squawk, and her face changed again.

\--

That had been _too_ close, thought Cat Noir, gasping for air.  Perfect luck, though, that Marinette had wanted to split up.  It felt wrong to leave her alone, but he could do far more good as Cat Noir.

There was a problem, though, Ladybug didn’t know what was happening here.  She wouldn’t be here to help, and he couldn’t do this alone.  He had to-

A familiar red and black blur followed the same path his baton just had.

_How had she known?_

\--

It felt awful splitting off from Adrien, leaving him to handle the situation on his own, (He had to be so scared), but she could do far more good as Ladybug.  Second to her mind was the thought ‘ _How had Cat Noir already arrived’._

She stepped up to his side, and they both stepped in front of Alya.  Alya had picked up her phone, and was opening up a recording.  She was shaking with either excitement or residual terror.  With the way she was grinning, Ladybug thought that there might have been a bit of primordial bloodlust mixed in. At the look, Alya nodded encouragingly.

Well.  That was fine, she guessed.

“So,” said Cat Noir, “any idea where the Akuma is?”

She shook her head.  Usually, they could tell.  They’d be using it as a weapon, or have it carefully displayed, or… Anything, really.  Or, sometimes, you could just tell.  _This_ one, though, there was nothing.  Nothing at her throat to amplify her voice, nothing on her hands, where the claws had formed.  Nothing.

 

A shadow crossed Banshee’s face, and she grinned, showing every tooth in her mouth.  “Ladybug and Cat Noir, how well timed.”  Energy crackled across her face, and her appearance shifted again.  Skin, just a bit less mismatched, hair more evenly mixed.

“When I hit her, she looked different,” said Cat Noir, as they slowly moved apart, into flanking positions.  “Her features changed.  They were less consistent.”

“It’s didn’t happen like this before,” muttered Ladybug, slowly moving forward.  Banshee was backing up.  “But I think two people have been Akumatized again, and they’re both in the same body.”

“Right,” said Cat Noir, “But it was in the hats that time.  Where is it now?”

Banshee screamed, and made a leap for Ladybug, slashing with her claws.  Nearly frozen by the scream, she only _just_ dodged the first claw, and caught the second across an arm.  She could feel her suit tear, and blood beginning to well up.

The next set of slashes went to Cat Noir, who with a visible will, blocked with his baton.  A slash near his face, and he backed up, just long enough for a wild slash at Ladybug again.  She backed up too.

The scream ended.

Cat Noir got in a shot to her back with his baton, and Ladybug, a kick to her guts that made what little air was still in her lungs leave.  The energy crackled, and she began to destabilize again.  She jumped back, and they all stood still for an instant.

\--

It felt like fizzing bubbles on her face.  She felt it every so often, and, less pleasantly, every time they hit her.  She’d been bothered at first, when she could still hear two voices in her mind.  She could still hear the voices when they hit her, but she could also feel the gaps healing over.

She stared down the two.  They were all that stood between her, and revenge.  “Banshee,” came a now familiar voice in her head, “Retreat.  You have not fully fused.  Besides, you have your revenge to take.”

“Take now?”

“By all means.”

“Generous.”

She scoffed at them, from where she stood.  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you,” she said, “but I’ll get back to you later.”

She unleashed a short, but deafening cry at the nearest window.  No more window.  Perfect exit.  She dove through, and set off on her way.  Revenge was close.  She felt the fizzing again.

\--

They ran.  Of course they ran.  The banshee clearly had her mind set on vengeance, and with claws and teeth like that, it wouldn’t be pretty.

Alya ran after them, no match for their pace, but still faster than she’d run in a long time.  Adrenalin was quite a thing.  “So,” she gasped out as she ran, “for those of you who are, *HHHhhhgh* confused, Ladybug and *HHhhhgg* Cat Noir are fighting some kind of Banshee woman.” She stopped at a crossroads in the halls.  She was right in the middle of the school now.  “It looks like she’s going to attack some of the other students in the- No! Be back soon.  I have to make a call.”

\--

They’d hidden again.  This time in the library.  Nino had called _everyone_ who they’d left behind.  Adrien?  Nothing.  Alya?  Gone to voicemail.  He’d called Marinette, too, once he’d found her number in his phone.  Nothing.  He couldn’t fight a villain.  He wasn’t going to improve _anyone’s_ chances by running around drawing attention to himself.  He was trapped.    Well, not really trapped; they hadn’t barred the door, instead opting to hunker down in a lesser-used corner of the room, out of sight from the entrance.

None of them was the better for the experience. Ivan was humming along with Mylene, who slowly seemed to be calming down.  Max, Kim and Alix appeared to be talking strategy about what would happen if they were discovered.  The worst affected of all of them was Juleka, who was silently staring off into the distance, visibly shaking, but she had the already recovered Rose talking cheerily to her, with a grounding arm around her shoulder. “… Nasty, ugly sound,” she was saying, “but it mostly just reminded me a worse version of Glitterbomb.  You know that scream she does in _Neon Annihilation?_   Just like that, but worse.”

Hopefully, they’d hold out until Ladybug and Cat Noir arrived, and wouldn’t have to use Max’s plan to drop the second level bookshelves on her.

Nino’s phone rang, and he yanked it from his pocket.

That was her caller ID all right.  “Alya!?”

“Where are you, Nino?”

“The library.”

“Right, well, look out for Banshee soon.  She stopped fighting Ladybug and Cat Noir, and I think she’s coming for you guys.”

“Got it.”

“Stay safe, alright?”

“Alright.”

“I’ll stay away as long as I can.  Don’t want to lead her to you.  Bye.”

“Wait!  Do you know where Adrien and Marinette are?”

“I think they’re alright, but I don’t know where they are.”

The scream tore through the library.

“You stay safe too, alright?” he said, and as the next scream split the air, he lost his grip on the phone, and dropped it.

\--

For a second, all of the sound was static, and then another scream that she heard through the air, and then through her phone.

“HEY!” came a voice through the phone.  She knew that voice, but couldn’t _quite_ make out who it was.  Was that Adrien?  She had to get there immediately.

\--

Banshee looked different now.  Her face looked almost completely smooth, and was grayer than ever.  Her hair, even, seemed almost to have fully meshed.  Her eyes were the only part that were visibly mismatched.

Ladybug whipped the yoyo across her face, and saw barely a ripple.

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” said Banshee, seemingly unconcerned by the strike.  Her voice was different, now.  It was shrill, but more collected.

Without another word, Banshee dove at them, a mess of talons and fangs, faster than before.  She wasn’t even bothering to scream anymore; her fangs were good enough for her.  They hit her from every angle.  Nothing.  Rapid or hard, it didn’t matter.  Nothing seemed to hurt her

Eventually, they broke from the melee, each with a thousand deaths nearly suffered.

Another crackle of energy, and all that remained to suggest two people were ever in that body were the eyes, still stubbornly different.

“We’re out of time,” said Ladybug.  “ _Lucky Charm!”_

What appeared in her hand was small and rectangular.  It opened to reveal-

“A mirror?”

\--

Why would she need to hurry now?  Let them think they had a chance.  Let them try their little trick.  Let them think she might be merciful.  She was almost fully formed now.  She was beyond any of their strikes, unless Cat Noir dared try his cataclysm on a _person_.  He wouldn’t do that, though, and they all knew it.  Her skin was becoming iron-hard, and her claws like razors, and they couldn’t stop her now.

“Hey!” called out Ladybug, holding up something in her hand.

“You have something for me, insect?  Do you think you can appease me?”

“I just thought, knowing who’s in there, that you’d love a chance to take a look at your own face.  Maybe it’ll be worthwhile to take a look in the mirror.”

She heard that voice in her mind again.  “No!  It is a trap!”

“They cannot touch me.”

She took the mirror, and…  _Her face.  Her perfect_ face _!_   She could feel herself trying to rip apart from that simple thought.

“Don’t like what you see?”

 _No!_ raged what remained of the voice, _I don’t!_

She was too strong for that now, though.  Chloe didn’t matter anymore.  Sabrina didn’t matter.  Whether they had made her or she had made herself, she was in charge now, and it would take more than her own face to bring her down.

She grimaced at the insurrection, and with an effort, put it down.  She looked down at her own image again, as if to prove that it didn’t affect her.  No.  Not hideous.  She was beautiful, not because of her appearance, but because of her power.  She would _end_ these worms that had dared exclude her, and then she would visit the same treatment on anyone in this world that _dared-_

“You know, if you pull yourselves apart, you can go back to, what you were.”  Ladybug looked as if the words almost pained her.

“And lose what I have _become_!?”

Something tapped her on the shoulder; a chunk of what looked like grey char.  She looked back at Ladybug.  She hadn’t thrown it.  It had come from above.  She looked up, and saw-

\--

Max smiled, satisfied, and adjusted his glasses.  He’d been right.  The second story bookshelves _had_ been the way to go.  A second one came down on her head, and there was a crack that sounded like lightning, with a matching screech.

‘Banshee,’ as they’d been calling her, still wasn’t quite defeated.  What stood up looked little like the villain they’d knocked down.  In fact, she looked almost exactly as if Chloe and Sabrina had been cut in half and stitched together in the greatest failure of vertical symmetry ever.  As she stood confused, Ladybug gave her a sharp rap in the forehead with two of her knuckles.

It was reminiscent of nuclear fission.  One entity splitting apart to become two lesser entities.  The two girls launched away from each other, and where they’d been standing, left behind…

Something small, in the shape of a glowing butterfly flapped up, only to be snatched out of the air.

Hmm.  ‘De-evilize’ was bad grammar.

\--

“No!  Ladybug!  Cat Noir!  You may have defeated one more villain, but next time, it will be _you_ who scream!”

\--

Ladybug had time to spare before she forcibly retransformed, but Marinette had to explain her sudden absence.

“Bug out!”

…

As they walked back to the room, they heard a door opening, and who should stumble out but Marinette herself.  She seemed nervous and flustered.  Who wouldn’t be after being inside a cramped closet for any period of time?

Marinette joined them, only moments before Adrien emerged in similar fashion from a janitor station at the end of the hallway.

Chloe was unusually silent.  Sabrina was characteristically silent.

They walked back into their homeroom.  Cupcakes were still strewn across the floor.  The table was still overturned.  In relative silence, they slowly reassembled things, with conversation returning slowly.  Chloe was still silent.  Marinette supposed that being Akumatized drained negative emotions, and without negative emotions, there wasn’t much Chloe.

Conversation finally returned, almost like it was before.

Alya found an untouched cupcake, and gestured at a table near the back.

Marinette rolled her eyes.  Alya.  Indefatigable, and dedicated.  She couldn’t ask for a more terrifyingly supportive friend.

They sat down again, and Alya put down a knife in front of them.

“It was the best one I could find,” she said.

She looked over at Adrien.  He shrugged, and picked up the knife.

“Oh, by the way,” he said, passing Marinette her half, “I was going to say, before everything went crazy.  Alya was talking about how you were bringing in something from _your_ family’s business, and I thought that it would make perfect sense if I did the same thing.”

“So,” said Marinette, “some piece of fashion?”  She took a bite.

“That’s my father’s side of things.  It wouldn’t really be a gift from _me_ ,” he said.  “Alya said that you had an assignment in art and you were having trouble finding someone to pose for it?”

Marinette’s mouth froze midway through chewing.

“So, I was thinking, if you want me to, I can do it?  I’m pretty good at holding sitting still.”

Marinette’s face was beyond red.  She stared down at Alya.  Indefatigable, beautifully terrifying, _evil_ , amazing _Alya._

Alya winked back, and shrugged.

Marinette opened her mouth.  She wasn’t sure what was about to come out of it, but she hoped it wasn’t the remains of her cupcake.

\--

Alya grinned.  Return on investment?  1000%, just for Marinette’s face.

She turned and started half-swaggering away, and heard behind her, a squeaky ‘Sure!”

All things considered, not a bad day; she’d fought a villain.  She’d successfully gotten her best friend time with her crush.  _And,_ came the thought, Cat Noir had appeared at the perfect time for when Adrien had left.  Maybe she _was_ on to something, after all.  For that matter, and this thought widened the grin on her face, _Ladybug_ couldn’t have arrived so close on his heels, even if he’d called for her help, unless she’d been _close,_ like, inside the school close.

Oh yeah.  Everything was coming up Alya today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of a fused Akuma was actually a way around figuring out what item it would be in. What would a banshee be carrying, anyway? Make it so that each of them is each other's 'item,' and boom, solid workaround.  
> Incidentally, the way I'm handling Hawk Moth here comes from a realization I had. Hawk Moth is the most positive person in the whole show. Think about it; he's lost dozens of times, probably more, assuming there really are a bunch of villains we don't see, and every time, he leaves them with a statement of re-dedication to his cause. 'Ladybug and Cat Noir, today you may have defeated me, but next time *pun on his villain that says he will defeat them*' That's the attitude of a man who really knows the power of positive thinking.


	3. Vibrantes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the festival of masks; the perfect place for two superheroes to hang out in full costume. It is not a date. It is absolutely not a date, and Cat Noir is trying his hardest to remember that. Unfortunately, both of them have a bit of trouble remembering that, and it gets even harder when the newest villain shows up with emotion-intensifying abilities.

“So, Ladybug…” He seemed nervous.  She smiled, gently.  She knew what was coming.  “You know how I was talking about how we never spend time together outside of missions?”

“Of course, kitty.” His ring beeped, but he didn’t move.

\--

The festival of masks.  The _perfect_ place for a pair of superheroes in full costume to hang out.  It was like Halloween in the spring, a show of lights and color, and it was the perfect followup to the music festival.  With a bit of work, you could be completely unrecognizable in the sea of outfits, and most of all, _masks._

_\--_

Cat Noir had suggested they meet there.  It was a clever choice of venue, but Ladybug had asked for some time to consider the offer.  Her friends were going, as well as… Well.  Who _else_ might be there went without saying.  But, she’d overheard Adrien mention that he probably wouldn’t be there.  No Adrien meant no costumed chances at romance, and while she would have loved to go with her friends, she’d neglected _this_ friend long enough.  So she’d suggested that she might have to take a pass on joining them.

\--

“Meet me… On the balcony, you know the one, at 7.  On festival night.”

Cat Noir’s heart soared.  He could do that.  His father was always a judge at the costume contest. (Apparently it came with being a major fashion designer, and was an excellent source of inspiration) He always came back late.  By the time he came home, a locked door simply meant Adrien was asleep, and not to be disturbed.  Better still, it wouldn’t be a school night, so he could stay out as late as Ladybug could, and maybe even stay up later.  He’d never gotten to experience the festival before.  Best of all, he’d get to experience it with Ladybug, who he’d never really seen outside of emergencies.  It felt like he knew her so well, but he never got to see her.  What was she like when she wasn’t fighting villains?

…

It was taking all of his energy not to think of this as a date.  He was going out- no, wait, loaded phrase- spending _time_ with a friend who he barely saw outside of work.   That was it.  He was _also_ getting a chance to have fun somewhere new.  That was _it_.

It was 6:57 when she arrived.

“You’re early,” he said.

She smiled.  “Not as early as you.”

He shrugged, with a faintly bashful grin.  “Just didn’t want to make you wait.”

“So.  Where do you want to start?”

“I’ve never actually _been_ to the festival of masks before,” he said.  “I don’t know what people even do there.”

“Well,” she said, “I guess we’d better start off by just walking around.”  She sighed, happily, “I’ve already seen two of you and a half dozen of me, so nobody’ll pay either of us any notice tonight, and you should get used to the outfits before you try anything else.”

She nodded her head, and hopped over the railing, down to the pavement.  Cat Noir followed her.

Nobody had seen them jump down, so they just walked slowly into the depths of the celebration.  The colors grew slowly more vivid.  They passed another few of their doubles, as well as a few villains they’d faced.  They were crazy get-ups, but often well crafted.  Celebrities, phantoms, old-fashioned gentlemen in masks much like their own, even a stray Rena Rouge, in full attire, who’d somehow acquired a copy of the whole thing, including the necklace.  Cat Noir perked up at that, but Ladybug just shook her head.  Some people had even more ambition, or had simply arrived with the intention of wearing the loudest outfits they could find.

Music flowed through the whole thing.  Some of it from carnival games that, of course, found a way in, some of it street performers (Themselves in costume), and still more from parts unknown.

\--

They walked a while, until the flash of a camera stopped them.  “Sweet couples costume, you two!” someone shouted, “Not the best Ladybug I’ve seen, but the Cat Noir is on point!”

Ladybug didn’t have anything prepared for that, but after a beat Cat Noir stepped forward and with his tail twirling in one hand. “Thanks,” he said, and winked, “I’ve been working on the mannerisms, too.”

The person laughed, and moved along.

“You know, I’m really glad that worked because I didn’t have the follow up if she kept talking,” he said as he joined her side again.

She giggled.  “Guess you show through no matter what, huh?”

“Yeah!  You know me, _Cat Noir,_ daring hero, utterly unforgettable,” he nudged her, “absolutely unmatched with the _ladies.”_

She rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling.  “Come on,” she said, “the way you act, it’s pretty obvious you’ve never been in a relationship in your life.”

“Oh is that _so_?”

“Oh that _is_ so.  You flirt with every girl you meet but I bet if one of them actually tried to get any closer, you’d get all flustered and confused.”

“And what about you?  You wouldn’t get flustered and confused if someone tried that with you?”

She opened her mouth to respond, and then blushed, barely visible in the colorful lights.  “depends on the person.”

He laughed. “This just in!” he said, holding his hand up, pretending to shout, “We’re on the trail of Ladybug’s secret weakness, more news at 11!”

She nudged him with an elbow, “Stop it.”

He put up his hands.  “Alright, as you wish.  I just wanted to represent a free press, but if you insist on censoring the news…”

“Absolutely I do.”

They moved on, and Cat Noir was just asking where they should _really_ start, when…

“Oh my gosh,” said Alya, running up to them in a top-hatted suit and a mask much like Cat Noir’s, and then, quietly “You two are the real deal, aren’t you?”

Cat Noir looked over at Ladybug, “I thought you said nobody would notice us.”

“Then you didn’t count on me!’ said Alya.  “You think I wouldn’t recognize the two people whose faces I’ve studied as closely as my own?  You _walk_ like the real deal.  Your _outfits_ are _perfect_.  And if that didn’t give it away, I’d know your voices in a heartbeat.”

 _Apparently not_ thought Marinette, remembering some of Alya’s fruitless searches.

“So, what brings you two to the festival of masks?”

Ladybug shrugged, “It’s fun?”

Alya deflated a bit.  “Yeah, guess that was kind of obvious.”

She walked along with them for a bit, but soon enough, said, “I guess I should meet up with my friends; I’m already supposed to have met up with them, but then I saw you two, and now I’m, like, two minutes late and three away.”  She started jogging away from them, and shouted back, “I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you guys some other time!”

Ladybug smiled.  She’d heard about this; Alya had mentioned going to the costume contest, not to participate, of course, the costumes were way out of _any_ of their league, but just to take in the sights.  As a matter of fact, Alya had the right idea.  The costume contest was kind of the main event, and it’d be starting soon.

…

It had to be up ahead, from the way the crowd was beginning to, well, crowd them.  Someone who was either tremendously fat or was playing the part for a costume knocked her to the side.  She stepped away.

She had her shoulder at his chest, and his wrist was knocking against her back.  For a second she didn’t realize it had even happened; it didn’t feel like she was being pushed into someone else.  It felt like she was sitting on the edge of her warm bed, half-awake after a long nap.

She felt the desire to put an arm around his shoulder land on her like snow.  She pulled that thought back, but it kept piling up.

Cat Noir, from a few inches above her, was craning his neck to find a way forward, or maybe to see what the fuss was about.  _He_ didn’t even notice she was there.

\--

His whole body was warm.  He was trying to ignore the contact.  He was _not_ thinking about it.  He was scanning.  He was trying to find a line of sight to up ahead through the hats and wigs.  He was _not_ noticing her shoulder in his chest.  He thought he caught a glimpse of something up ahead, but he couldn’t quite make out _what-_

Her hand was on his shoulder.  He tried not to react, but a smile curled at the edges of his mouth, against his will.  For a second he could almost imagine that she… That she… But she wasn’t.  She didn’t; she’d probably just needed somewhere to put a hand, and his shoulder had- had presented itself as an option.  His hand twitched at his side, mutinous against its orders.

But he wasn’t given a choice in the matter.  His hand slid up and mirrored hers.  It felt like he was about to cry.

“I think there might be a way through over there,” he said, nodding and trying to keep his voice from cracking.

\--

If they really wanted to get out of here, they could simply cut off to the side and jump up from an alley, she realized.  They pushed forward a bit.  _Did she really want that_ , muttered the part of her brain that was still holding her hand hostage on his shoulder.

She did.

She didn’t.

Neither was a lie.

They pushed forward again, and with a force of will that was stronger than she would admit, she said, “We can just get over into an alley and jump up.  It’s a better view from there anyway.”  He just nodded silently, and turned a bit further.

Pushing across the crowd, they made better progress, and in barely twenty seconds, they’d already escaped the throng, and in a few more, were in a deserted alley.  Not that it would really matter if anyone had been here, they’d only have had a few seconds to be surprised before the two of them were well out of reach.

Here, where nobody was pressing in, she could pull her arm down.  There was no excuse for it.

“See you up high, kitty.”

“See you first.”

She was up in barely a moment.  He followed after a few.

\--

The lights were dim, and so full of color, that even _he,_ with his enhanced eyesight, could only make out the shape of her face.  With any luck, she couldn’t see the burning red in his cheeks.

“So,” he said, “What was everyone so excited about?”

“See for yourself,” she said.  He looked.

It was spectacular.  Even having seen hundreds, if not thousands of people dressed for the occasion, _these_ were something special.

No wonder his father came here for inspiration.  Speaking of which, where _was_ he?  There was a massive stage, with bright white lights shining down on it, and he’d presumably be up close to it, if he was a judge, so where… There.  Mr. Gabriel Agreste.  He hadn’t dressed for the occasion, any more than he ever did, but that just made him more recognizable. At this distance, Adrien could only _just_ recognize that suit he always wore with the peculiar color.  Well.  He recognized the color anyway.  Next to him… That had to be the mayor; they always prevailed on the mayor for this kind of thing.  And who else was… Nobody he recognized.

“Want to move a bit closer?” said Ladybug.

However he felt, certain Cat Noir habits couldn’t be refused.

He laughed, “sure,” and slid closer to her.

“ _To the stage_ ,” she said, pushing him away with one hand, softly, but definitely.

“Sure, sure,” he said, “that works too.”  As she jumped ahead of him, he breathed a sigh of relief.  Everything was back to normal.  No more heartache than usual.

They leapt a few roofs and soon, were sitting in spots that would have been to kill for on ground level.  Up here, without anyone fighting for them, they were perfect.

\--

They sat on the edge of the roof, looking down at the spectacle, for an hour, and then two hours.  They saw the most dedicated costumers and clothiers the city had to offer, presenting the pinnacle of their craft, in truly remarkable form.  Their conversation was often clipped by personal information, but there was plenty of innocuous material to talk about.

As night was truly fallen, a winner was declared.  ‘ _The Clockwork Champion’_ as the outfit was named, was a hulking design of gears and wheels, with half a dozen moving parts.  It looked like it weighed a ton, but there was clearly a human inside it somewhere.  The applause at the announcement was deafening.  There was no denying that the creator had earned the victory.

They watched from on high as the crowd slowly dispersed.  The judges were gone almost before the announcement was out.  The contestants, especially the best, seemed reluctant to leave, as if hoping for a change in their fortunes.  No such change was coming, though.

They sat there even longer.  It didn’t seem like either of them felt like leaving.

The lights slowly faded out, as vendors and carnival barkers with their games shut down.

“Huh,” said Cat Noir, “Pretty soon I guess it’ll just be you, me, and the moon.”

“I guess.”

He whistled, “and quite a moon at that.  Full and shiny.”

“Yeah.”

…

“It’s a beautiful night.”

He smiled, and resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to say that he knew what _else_ was beautiful.  She’d just roll her eyes and laugh him off.  Besides, she was right.  The deepest of blues was in the sky, and the moon _exceptionally_ bright.  It felt like the stars alone were enough to see by.  Those that remained of the tacky lights from earlier were now just accents, making the whole scene feel like a painting.

\--

That same feeling of comfort was rising again.  On a night like this, the world looked perfect.  Nobody was fighting, and she was alone with a friend.  It was the feeling of seeing someone pass by your hiding-place, like a little trick successfully pulled off.  Up here, she was as isolated and invisible as anyone, but she wasn’t alone.  She looked over at him.  There were worse people to be alone with.  The same urge to put an arm around him was back.  She put up the barest resistance, before giving in.  He didn’t hesitate this time, either.  They sat, staring out at the tranquil night.

She looked over at him.  There was a strange shape in his lips, the kind of smile you didn’t notice you had.

She noticed the impulse after she’d already acted on it.  His mouth was warm, but he shivered.

\--

The little, central bit of his soul was alone, suddenly; his mind had blown away.  He couldn’t feel his limbs.  He couldn’t see the night.  The only feeling he had was _her_.  Then, almost as suddenly as she had arrived, she was gone.  His back hit shingles.  It was like standing up too suddenly.  His vision was spotty, and he had pins and needles in his face.

“Do you hear that?” she said.

He groaned, the best he could do.

“There’s trouble.”

He knew there was trouble.  Then he heard the shouts, and understood what she meant.

\--

She really hoped he wouldn’t remember that.  She really hoped _she_ wouldn’t remember that.  She didn’t know how it had happened, or _why_.  All she knew was that if she hadn’t heard something, she wouldn’t have stopped.  She wasn’t like this.  She’d kept that vague feeling of confusion properly locked inside for so long, what could possibly have…  It was this night.  It was the strangely sublime appearance of the city…  No.  This was wrong.  _Nothing_ ever looked like this.  Something was stranger than strange.  As she looked down, she understood what.  A figure was in the middle of the street, in the center of what could easily have been a gang of monsters.  They weren’t monsters, though.  They were the losers, and in the middle of them…

She knew that one.  He’d been a serious contender for the victory.  What had he been called.  Vibrantes?

He wore a suit of lights, and colors.  It was iridescent, and almost peacock-like in design.  He’d looked excellent on stage, and now?  The colors of his suit _burned_ at the eye, stronger than she’d believed colors could be.  Shining neons and deep, rich colors, flowing cascades of fabric.  As he gesticulated at the crowd, his hands left a trail, as if he was _smoking_ with light.  That wasn’t natural.  He’d been Akumatized.  Was it _his_ fault she’d lost control?

She felt the fire rising in her guts, and then forced it back down.  That wasn’t natural anger.  Not all of it, anyway. 

It was almost a relief to realize.  That hadn’t been her; not really.  That had been her emotions empowered and given free reign.  She was back, though.  For now, anyway.

Cat Noir was still lying on his back, and he seemed to be hyperventilating.

She elbowed him, and he jerked up from his position almost hard enough to fall from the roof.

“There’s a villain down there,” she said. “I’m positive of it.”

“What?”

“He’s messing with people’s emotions.”

“Oh.”…  “Not surprised, somehow.”

“C’mon, we’d better check it out.”

He nodded.  He seemed to have calmed down too.

 

The stage had mostly been deconstructed, but they could see the workers had joined the circle.  They slipped down, and near to the outer edge of the circle.  The colors were intoxicatingly strong here.  It felt like you could get drunk on them.

“... they have not appreciated you.  They have left you to your troubles, and told you to ‘be strong,’ that you’ll surely succeed next time around.  They never let you.  You will not win unless you _take_ your victory.  Tonight, we take that victory, and we let, them, see, our, _RAGE!”_

The world darkened, colors saturated so hard that they physically hurt to see.  A roar of approval went up from the crowd.  She looked over at Cat Noir, his suit, even though it was supposed to be black, was burning with the colors too, reflected from the ground, coming from the light.

 

The strange effect faded, and the crowd turned.  The crowd turned and a few of them saw _them_.

A cry went up, and Vibrantes turned.  A black shadow crossed his face, and he shouted, “See here!  Two who have been given so much.  Given power!  Given fame!  And why?  _Why!?_   _GET THEM_ **!”**

There was no more warning than that.  A mass of bodies was upon them almost before he’d finished speaking.  They knocked a few skulls, hit a few attackers, but it was immediately obvious that they didn’t stand a chance like this, emotionally shaken and physically outnumbered.  They jumped, up and away.  They hit the rooftop, no worse for wear, visibly.  Internally, though, they were shaken.

Cat Noir was muttering under his breath, “That’s too many people.  Way too many people.  We can’t fight them. Not all of them, anyway, not like that.  We _can’t_ fight that many people if…”

The panic was slowly overtaking Ladybug too.

\--

“I will deal with them myself!  For now, _take your revenge._   Burn and destroy!” came the voice.  That pulled Chat Noir back out, just far enough for him to pull himself back the rest of the way.  Ladybug was still panicking, though.

“Hey!” he said.  She didn’t react.  He softly punched her shoulder, and she snapped to look at him.  Her eyes cleared.  “We can’t both be out of it at the same time.”

She looked at him, and nodded, slowly at first, then faster.  “As long as he can’t get us both at once, we can get him.”

“Interesting point,” came a voice from behind them.  “Then again,” said Vibrantes, advancing, and cracking his knuckles, “I think you’ll find that group hysteria is a very real threat, and that, perhaps, I’ll only need to break _one_ of you, and the other will fall.”

They pulled their weapons.  He balled his fists, and smiled, self-assured and cocky.

Oh, he wanted to wipe that smug smile off his face so bad.

“You won’t even be a challenge, when you can’t think straight.”

He _growled,_ a noise that he had to be straight from Cat Noir, that had never seen Adrien.

“Careful,” she said.  He groaned, but nodded, and was carefully putting his face back in order when Vibrantes rushed them.

For a second, the colors dizzied him, but as the first punch landed, he managed to forget them, and put his baton to work.

\--

Effortless strength, now _that_ was a gift.  They struck him, but he could still stand after a strike that would have flattened him mere minutes ago.  But as they were struck him from both sides, he knew that whatever his strength was, he couldn’t stand against them like this. He didn’t have to, though.  All he had to was _destabilize them_.  All he had to do for that was…

He leveled a savage kick at Cat Noir, enough to make him jump back, and lunged at Ladybug.  They backed up, and stuck together again.  Perfect; all he had to do now…

\--

The world had begun to go soft at the edges, like smoke, or running paint, but she was still holding it together.  She could hear shattering glass down below.  “That’s all you have?” said the villain, managing to swagger without taking a step.  “Shame.  I thought you’d be a challenge, but no, it turns out you’re nothing.  All you really needed to be defeated was someone with an ounce of sense in their brain.  And now, you’re just going to stand there, while your beloved city is raided beneath you, and there’s not a single thing you can-

“CATACLYSM!”

The fear hit her in a wave.  Why was he using it right- he was rushing forward, hand outstretched, as if to- “Cat Noir!  No!”

He remembered himself, pulled back, but a second too late.  Not too late for his enemy, but for himself.  His attack didn’t make contact, but the hand that came down like a hammer certainly did.  The roof beneath their feet began to disintegrate.

“What a shame,” said Vibrantes, picking him up by the back of the neck, “A murder, attempted, and then _failed_.  Truly, a failure of a hero.”  He threw Cat Noir off the roof.

Absolutely not.  There was no decision, no thought, just an absolute conviction.  She dove after him.

\--

He was falling.  He knew that on some level, and he knew that he’d been falling for a bit longer than he liked.  Unfortunately, his body’s only response was to flail at his out-of-reach enemy.  It seemed like that sort of senseless reaction had been happening a lot, recently.  A red blur was above him, and then, he was slowing down, and upright again.  There was an arm under his shoulders.

“Oops,” came a voice from above, and then, with an elastic _twang,_ they were falling again.  Something knocked him on the head, then the whole road hit him across his front, and she landed on him from behind.

Out of breath, mind dizzy from the colors, which were now really beginning to flow around him, melting, only roughly holding their shape.  It was like everything was made of smoke and there was a strong wind blowing.

 

He heard a thud behind him, and as he turned, he saw a splendorous figure.  Ladybug was up, and hauled him up with her.

“We’re on a timer,” she said, “We’ve got to wrap this up, or you’ll change back.”

That could only mean one thing.

“Lucky Charm!” … “Why do I keep getting restraints?”

He swung his head over; it felt like he was underwater, but it looked like the world was melting in a fire.  Something, red and black, was lying in her hands. It was a blur.

Faintly, he heard her say, “Okay.  I think I get it.  Sorry about this, but we’ve got to stick together.”

“ _Do you really think that will save you?”_ came a voice like a warm current of water.  He could feel it ripple over him.  Then he felt something cold at his left wrist, and a faint clicking.  She was grabbing his hand.  He gripped back.  There was no softness in that sensation.  It was real.  He looked over, and she was there, a bit clearer.  And he was… Handcuffed to her?

“We need to stay anchored to something,” she said.

His head was still swimming, but he tightened his grip, and felt some semblance of sense return.  “Right.”

“ _How nice,”_ came the current again, from that starlike figure.  “But useless.  Any anchor is worthless in a strong enough current.  All I have to do is _wash_ _you_ _away…”_

There was no sound anymore, only some strange sensation in his ears, like warm honey.  His body was numb.  The colors around them were nothing but smudges on his eyes.  Only two landmarks remained.  There was the shining light of his enemy, burning like the sun, bending the world around it away, and the unmissable, real sensation of his friend’s hand.  That was all he needed.  He grinned this time, and gave her hand a squeeze.

She returned the gesture.  And they charged.

\--

It was mere moments later, but it had felt like an eternity had passed, as if they’d fought their enemy for eons unknown.  But the effect was fading.  There was a shape in the world again, and they were standing there, almost alone in the street.

Akuma, caught.  Cuffs, off, and up.

“Pound it!”  And the renewing energy rushed over them, as if that impact had itself reversed everything that happened.

They were in an ordinary city street, on an ordinary night, with some man who had lost a costume contest.  Nothing strange at all.

They both fell to their knees, one after the other. But they couldn’t rest.  They were running out of time.

“What happened?” said the man in the outfit.  “I remember losing the contest, and then I was angry, but…”

Cat Noir shook his head, “Don’t worry about it.  It’s fine.  Everything is fine.”

Ladybug staggered to her feet.  “Come on.  We’ve got to get out of here.”  She reached down.  He grabbed her hand and pulled himself up.

“Guess we’re probably not doing _that_ again,” he said.  His ring beeped.

Ladybug smiled. “I don’t know; if it hadn’t been for Mr. Crazy Emotions over there, it’d have been a pretty good night.”

“You mean it?”

She shrugged.  “I’ll see you next time.”

\--

Cat Noir bounded across the city, and Adrien landed in his room, safe and sound.

What a night it had been.  She’d kissed him, and she wanted to see him _again_.  She wouldn’t have done the first one in her right mind, but she _had_ done it, and, come to think of it, he’d only made emotions stronger, not created them.  Whatever she’d done, on some level she’d _wanted_ to do?  But didn’t _really_ want to do.  Where did that leave him then?

 _Then_ , of course, he’d flown into a rage, and tried to _kill_ someone.  That was almost as confusing, but here, at least, he had access to his own thoughts.  He didn’t want to kill anyone.

That settled it, he supposed; he couldn’t take anything that had happened in there as being ‘real,’ not if it had almost turned him into a murderer.

The whole thing still left an odd feeling in his stomach, but now, he knew where to go with that.  The festival had only ended recently, and anyone who’d been there would probably still be up, right?  Marinette had said she’d be busy, but maybe she’d dropped in on the festival late.  It wasn’t like _he’d_ be sleeping any time soon, either, so he might as well...

“Up for another trip, Plagg?”

Plagg groaned, and swallowed his mouthful of cheese.  “Yeeeaaah, just give me a sec, there’s no fire this time.”

Adrien almost didn’t listen, but… it seemed like Plagg never got to finish his cheese before transforming.  He sat there, and watched a small, cat shaped creature eat cheese for a minute.

Plagg sighed, as the last of it vanished down his throat.  “That’s good…  Okay, I’m ready.”

“Alright, let’s go.  Claws out!”

\--

Marinette _was_ still up.  Truth be told, she’d expected a visit tonight, and would have happily visited someone to talk about things if she’d had anyone to talk about them with.  Still, she was expecting company, so she grabbed some leftovers from the day and brought them up.  She was hungry, anyway.  She’d been out for hours and hadn’t even gotten any of the free popcorn.  She wouldn’t even have to lie about that, it was perfectly reasonable as an explanation.

So, when the knock came at her ceiling, she was ready.  He gave her a hand, and she pulled herself up.  They took up the same chairs as they had before.

“What’s on your mind, Cat Noir?” She offered him a slice of bread.

“It’s been, quite a night,” he said, “I got to spend time with Ladybug without a villain attacking.  We watched the costume contest.  Things got a little weird after that.”

She cast about.  “A villain attacked, right?”

“Yeah.  He was messing with people’s emotions, and he got Ladybug’s.  She kissed me, and now I’m more confused than I’ve been in a long time.”

“Oh.”

“It gets worse, too.  For a while now, I’ve thought that there was a chance I’d run into Ladybug sometime, plainclothes, you know?”

“Okay.”

“Only, now that I’ve seen her when she’s at ease, I realized that I wouldn’t recognize her.  She’s still the same person, but I’m so used to seeing her one way,” he turned to Marinette.  “She could be right in front of me, and I wouldn’t know it was her.”

She shouldn’t say this, should she, but… What would the harm be, hadn’t he already told her it would be harmless?  “So, you’re saying…  You’re saying, for instance, that _I_ could be Ladybug, and you wouldn’t notice.”

He nodded.  “You remind me of her, though.  You both have a streak of heroism and compassion in you.  I’ve seen it.”

“You needed someone to talk to.  Being a hero is hard work.”

“It’s not just that.  You work to help other people all the time.”

She looked over at him, “What do you mean?”

He looked away.  “I, may have seen you once or twice as my other self.” His face snapped back to her.  “Not following you or anything!  It’s just that I live around here.  For me, coming up here is like visiting a neighbor,” he’d never visited a neighbor in his life, but this felt about right.  “Whenever I see you, though, it seems like you’re always helping when there’s trouble.”

She smiled.

“I’m just glad that I have someone to talk to, now.  I can’t tell you who I am, but I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

She looked away.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, I just, I’m trying to-“ she sighed. “You’ve trusted me with a lot, and I wanted to return the favor, in some little way.  I said it was a secret who I had a crush on?”

“Yeah?”

“I’d feel wrong to hear everything you’ve told me, and then be totally stubborn for myself.”  She took a deep breath, and said “He’s… His name is…” she hesitated, and then said, barely audible, “Adrien Agreste.”

“What?”

\--

That had sounded like she’d said-

“Adrien…  Agreste.”

The mask covered a lot of his face.  “I see,” he said, looking away.

“I know, I know,” she said, misinterpreting the gesture, “you’re thinking ‘Marinette has a celebrity crush, how original!’; but it’s not like that.  I’ve met him, I _know_ him.  He _cares_ about people, even before he really knows them.  He tried to be my friend when I first arrived at school.  He even kind of manages to be _Chloe’s_ friend.” she laughed, softly, “I thought he was _like_ her, at first.  You know Chloe, right?  Blonde, jerk, mayor’s daughter?  He was _nothing_ like her, though.  I mean, he’s just as oblivious, in a lot of ways, but who am I kidding, I’m not exactly the most forthcoming with my feelings, and I get worse at it whenever he’s around.  I mean, it took you, who has no good way of telling people my secrets, _trusting me with your own secrets_ , for me to give you even _one_ of mine, and I don’t even start stuttering and forgetting how to speak around you.”

“No,” he said, “You don’t…”

“So,” she said, “I guess I got us off track.  If you want to keep going, I won’t interrupt again.”

He stood up.  “Actually,” he said, “I appreciate the offer, but I think what I need right now is just to sleep.  Things will look better in the morning.”

Marinette nodded.  “Sometimes rest is the best medicine.”

...

Once more, even later at night than last time, Adrien Agreste was home and safe.  And what was he supposed to do now; sleep?  His friend had just admitted to having a crush on him.  His _own_ crush had kissed him, but practically against her will.  He couldn’t sleep.  He couldn’t confide in anyone except Plagg, who himself was not the best for it.

He lay back in his bed.  He needed something, _anything_ solid to fall asleep to.  He needed a conclusion.  He’d had questions he hadn’t asked answered, and more questions than that raised.  Just once, he needed something _answered_ , put to rest, done.  If he could just do that…

“Hey Plagg?”

“Yeah?”

“You know who Ladybug is, right?”

“You know I can’t tell you.”

“I know, but…  Could you tell me, _something_ about her?  Anything.  Something that doesn’t really matter, maybe.”

There was a long silence.  “Alright,” came the same grating voice, comforting only by familiarity.  “You talked to her earlier.”

“C’mon Plagg.”

“That’s all I’m going to say.”

Plagg was right, though.  He had talked to her.  With any luck, he would continue to talk to her.  He _didn’t_ need to know tonight.  There would be other days, and other nights.  He could wait, and maybe someday, he’d know the answers to his questions.  He held on to that thought like a pillow.  Another day.  Slowly, he sank into sleep, deep and dreamless.

\--

As Adrien faded off to sleep, Plagg waited a long time before giving a sigh of relief and letting out a shudder at his own impulsiveness.  That had been altogether too close to giving important information away.  In fact, it felt like he’d been mere inches away from giving the whole _thing_ away.  Of course, Adrien was, as always, more than a little bit oblivious.  Marinette knew that just as well as he did.  Tonight, that obliviousness had saved his skin; he dreaded to think what Tikki would have done if he’d, well, let the cat out of the bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was intense enough for me as the writer to make me include an intermission after this to calm things down.


	4. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawk Moth has taken a break from villains for the moment, leaving our heroes some time to relax. In unrelated news, Gabriel Agreste is trying feverishly to finish up the next big drop of Agreste products.  
> People take walks this chapter, and we get some minor interactions with people we don't see too much of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vibrantes was heavy to write, so I wrote an intermission to bring things back down afterwards. This is that intermission. No villain this time.

Three days had passed since the last villain attack.  Life was ordinary.  School had gone by without a hitch.  Something stranger than a villain attack was happening, though; Marinette was _bored_.

She’d been busy with a dozen disasters for so long she’d almost forgotten what it meant to be bored, so the sensation took her by surprise.  She was sitting in her room, and had finally finished her homework.  _Almost time to go to bed_ , she thought; she always finished homework late.  She looked up at the clock.  4 P.M.  Not time for bed, then.

Well then, she had time.  What now?  What had she spent her time on before all of this madness had started?  On the rare occasions a villain hadn’t attacked, there’d been something going on.  A music festival, a class party she had to prepare for, even an art project she needed to do.  Right now?  Nothing.

She leaned back in her chair.

“Hey Tikki?”

“What is it, Marinette?”

“What do you do when you’re… Actually, do you even _get_ bored?”

“Oh no!  I keep myself too busy for that.”

Marinette laughed, “Busy doing what?”

“Keeping an eye on _you_ mostly!”

“Hm.”

“…Are you bored, Marinette?”

She nodded.

“Well, it’s a beautiful day outside!  Maybe you should go for a walk.  You can take in the sights, have a day off!”

The sun _was_ shining down outside, and the breeze coming through the window was warm, and almost sweet.

“Sounds good to me.”  She didn’t pick up much on her way out.  Instead, she just picked up her essentials bag, which happily doubled as a good spot for Tikki to sit, and headed out, after poking her head in and telling her mother where she was going.

\--

Adrien had not had as restful of a day.  The next edition of Agreste Fashionings was coming soon, and he had to model large swaths of clothing in a short span of time.  He’d been afraid that a villain would attack when he was midway through something, and he wouldn’t be able to get away, but thankfully Hawk Moth had taken the day off.  Better still, it was the most he’d seen of his father in a while, because he’d been keeping half a watchful eye on the proceedings, while determinedly grinding away at the designs he had yet to finish.  Adrien had finished his work for the day, and hopefully for the next few days, but he was missing the sun, right now.  Technically, he was probably supposed to be practicing piano or something, but nobody was really paying attention to him now, which was itself a relief.  Maybe he could go for a walk?  Unfortunately, his father was too busy to be interrupted, and Nathalie… Well, she wasn’t frantic, she was never frantic, but she _was_ busy.

There was nothing much for it.  He couldn’t just go back to his room and _look_ at the world, he had to get out there.

He left a note on his door, ‘ _Gone walking, phone is on_ ,’ put on a hat and a pair of sunglasses, and walked out the door.  Of course, if his father saw that, he’d still get in trouble, but not as bad as if he didn’t leave the note at all.  If he could just get out of the yard without being spotted, hopefully nobody would be expecting famously reclusive Adrien Agreste out in the world.  He’d be effectively invisible, which would be a step up from _last_ time he’d tried to go for a walk.

Just like that, Adrien Agreste was gone, and in his place…  He needed a name…

He’d have time for that as he walked.

\--

Marinette hadn’t been alone in wanting to go outside today.  The park wasn’t exactly filled, but it was far from empty.  Max was sitting on a bench on the edge with a timer in one hand and Markov hovering next to him  Marinette looked back as she was passing the fence, and saw Kim flash past.  There was a tiny beep as Max clicked the timer.

 

As she looked around, she realized she actually recognized _quite a few_ people.  Well.  She had plenty of time.

Nino was sitting on a bench, with headphones on; the good kind.  He had his eyes closed, but something must have tipped him off, because he looked up as she drew near.  He pulled off a side of his headphones.

“’Hey, Marinette.  What’s up?”

“Just didn’t want to sit in my room all day,” she said, sitting down at a chair at a nearby table, “you?”

He laughed.  “Same here.  Adrien’s been busy with his old man; whole bunch of photoshooting, hasn’t been online in days. Figured I was gonna just listen to music anyway, so I might as well do it outside.”

Marinette nodded, and then said, “soo… What _are_ you listening to?”

He looked down at his phone.  “The title’s in wingdings.”

“Oh.”

“So, I guess it’s ‘Thumbs-down, square, square, solid diamond,’ and then the same thing again.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, but it’s pretty good.  Lots of trumpet.”

“How did you even look that up?”

“There’s a lot of free music servers around,” he said, with a shrug.

After a second, Marinette realized she didn’t have anything else to say.  She stood up again, and Nino put his headphones back over his other ear.

Hm.  A small stand further in was selling something.  She had some money on her.  Might as well.  She ambled along, looking around as she went.

…

She’d only gone a short way when she heard a faintly annoyed grunt from above her.  She looked up.  In a tree, half obscured was… Someone else she recognized.

“Nathaniel?”

He started, and looked down.  “Oh!  Hey Marinette.  Trying to get a landscape”

She could faintly make out the tablet in his lap, through the leaves.  “Cool!”

“By the way,” he said, after a second, going back to his tablet, “I saw that oil painting you did a couple weeks ago, the one you got Adrien to pose for.  Pretty cool.”

“Oh, thanks!”

Yet again, she didn’t have anything to say.  Everyone was already out here doing something, it seemed like, and she was just walking around interrupting them.

Well, there was still that stand further down.  Maybe they’d be selling something fun.

\--

Adrien Agreste, no, wait, what about… Darien Stag.  Now _that_ was a name.  Or, how was this for an idea, Darien _Plagg_ … No, that was stupid.  It was perfect as it was, just different enough from his to not be instantly recognized, but obvious enough that anyone who knew him should recognize it, coupled with his, well, mannerisms, clothing, and really just everything about him.  Unless…  He straightened up and walked with a bit more purpose.  Add a daring grin, and _boom_ , Cat Noir in normal clothes.  Wearing sunglasses.  His hair, eternally recognizable, was covered, along with his eyes.  Adrien Agreste?  Who was that?

He passed people on the street, and, remarkably, they looked over for a second, and then stopped paying attention to him.  He hadn’t had that happen since before he’d started modeling.

So.  He was out in the sun.  That was nice.  Where to now, though?  A movie would flat out put him back in the darkness.  That wouldn’t do.  Maybe Nino was around somewhere?

He pulled out his phone.

\--

Nino was almost done with ‘Doot Doot,’ which was where the _good_ stuff happened.

He didn’t notice his ringtone in the middle of the song.

\--

Nothing?  Huh.  Usually he would have picked up.

Darien Stag kept walking.  Well, if nothing else, he could stop in at the park.  It was so rare for him to be there when there wasn’t a photoshoot.  That’d be fun.

\--

She was just, finally, coming up on that stand, which she now saw was selling cotton candy, when she heard something; Strings, and a familiar voice.  She turned, and saw…

Rose was sitting on the ground, staring up excitedly at Juleka, who appeared to be telling a story.  Just behind her, Marinette could just catch sight of a guitar and a bit of unnaturally colored hair.

She felt something like her soul had almost gotten knocked from her body, but then it stabilized.  Luka, right there, playing, what was that, a _soundtrack_ to the story Juleka was telling?  She surreptitiously took a step back, and his face slid into sight, blank, except for a faint smile curling at his lips.  He was as peaceful as ever.  He looked up, and his face didn’t exactly light up, but he gave her a comparatively spirited nod, and the smile was now actually visible.  He nodded as if asking her to come over.  His hands still hadn’t stopped moving.  She took a wide circle around the three of them, until she was next to him.

“Hey Marinette,” he whispered.  He was _still_ playing.

“Hey,” she said, almost unwilling to use his name.  She sat down on the ground, and, seeing nothing better to do, started listening to the story.

It was impenetrable.  The characters had long, convoluted, dangerously cutesy names, but the plot was surprisingly grim, and coming in in medias res, she couldn’t parse the layers of treachery that were going on.  Some of the characters were magical, while others harbored secret anti-magical feelings?  It felt like some dream she’d had and then forgotten.  The only reason she had any idea what was going on was because Luka was always there, in the background, playing the mood.

“Do you have all of this prepared beforehand?” She whispered to him.

“Nah,” he said, “You just kind of let it flow.”

“Do you at least know the plot beforehand?”

“Nope,” he said, “this is as fresh to me as it is to her,” he nodded at Rose.

“It sure does seem fresh.”

“Tell you what; I’ve got my phone here, just add the contact info, and I can give you the plot synopsis any time.”

\--

At the first sign of anyone he actually knew, Darien Stag vanished.  Imagine what would happen if a plain-clothes Cat Noir had shown up, and then revealed his disguise, and turned out to be Adrien Agreste.  Still.  Maybe he’d need to fake his identity some time.  Yeah, that might work; if someone got to close to finding out who he really was, he’d just show up as the _obviously_ better bet for Cat Noir’s secret identity, and let Adrien fall off their radar as obviously not the same person.  Of course, maybe he’d need to do a bit better with his disguise.  His shirt was still pretty recognizable.

He walked past Max at the entrance, who was carefully consuming an ice cream cone.

Max looked up.  “This food is poorly designed.”

“Correct.  However, it is rude to refuse a gift from a friend,” said Markov, next to him.

 

Adrien snuck behind Nino.  His song was just far enough in that disturbing him would break the flow.  Nino seemed to be into it, too.  He could come back for him in a bit.  Maybe even make a joke about how he hadn’t even noticed him.

There was a stall further down.

Well, it wasn’t like he had much money, but at least he could solve the grand mystery of what they were selling.  Who knew, maybe it would be something free.  A pamphlet maybe.

He walked on, letting the sun shine down on him.  It was a beautiful day.

He was knocked out of his reverie by a voice to his left.

“And then High Priest Shimmerface laughed at her, lying at his feet and said, ‘Foolish girl, don’t you realize that your petty Reaper’s Blade has no effect on…” The speaker paused dramatically, “An Incarnation of the Fundament!”

He heard two gasps, and looking over, he saw, arms outstretched, Juleka, with a grin on her face.  Sitting in front of her, and to her right, respectively, were Rose and Luka.  Rose’s mouth was wide open, and even Luka might have been letting out a small ‘oh.’ His hand was motionless on his guitar.

Behind then, on the ground, mostly obscured by Luka, he could just make out a trace of hair so black it could almost have been blue.  Only one person had hair like that, and she had just noticed him.

She didn’t say anything, just looked at him.

Every day, he almost forgot what she’d told him, and then she’d look at him like that, and he’d wonder how he’d ever failed to notice.  He’d decided to not let it change how he talked to her.

“And _that_ , is where I’m leaving you.”

“What!?  No! No fair, that’s too much of a cliffhanger!”

“There’s no such thing as too much of a cliffhanger,” her voice had come back down to its usual deadpan quality, but there was still a trace of a smile.

Luka, put up a hand.  “Say that again.”  He put his hand back on the strings.

“There’s no such thing as-

“No, the bit before.  The last line.”

“Your Reaper’s Blade has no effect on…  An Incarnation of the Fundament!”

For someone who seemed like he’d prefer quiet soulful music, Luka knew a thing or two about dramatic guitar riffs, and, for that matter, rock music.  Adrien guessed he was just multitalented.  He sure knew his way around a guitar.

\--

Alya had had a point; he did look a lot like Cat Noir, especially when he was trying to go unnoticed, but, after all, they said everyone had a double somewhere in the world, right?  Or, what was it, eleven people who looked just like them?  It wasn’t Adrien’s fault that he had a similarly famous person as _his._   Anyway, he was wearing glasses and a hat, yes, but that shirt was still his, and even if he’d been wearing a full disguise, mask or not, she’d still have known it was him.  The way he _stood_ told her that by itself.

\--

He couldn’t let on that he knew.  Not a chance.  He’d already shown a total lack of intuition, and had no plausible way to have found out.  He couldn’t pretend to like her to draw her out, either.  No way.

 _Pretend?_ Muttered part of his brain.  _We both know that if it weren’t for Ladybug, you’d accept her feelings in a heartbeat._   He looked away.  _For that matter, we both know that you tried to imagine that_ she _wa_ s _Ladybug so you wouldn’t have to worry about ‘conflicting feelings’._

He’d only done that once, on the night she’d told him about her crush.  It had been just that; an idea to try to calm down his troubled mind, and after all, it was like he’d said, Marinette had a lot in common with Ladybug.  For a moment, he’d almost imagined he was right, before remembering what _wishful thinking_ was.  Ladybug, who he’d had a crush on for so long, secretly being in love with him, and then professing her feelings to him, not realizing who he was?

The whole scenario was ridiculous, improbable, and beyond self-indulgent.

 

Moreover, he was the black cat.  He didn’t _get_ luck like that.  He got _bad_ luck.  There was a _reason_ villains got him first, and it wasn’t just because he was happy-go-lucky and a bit incautious.  Luck was only on his side as far as Ladybug was lucky, and _she_ was on his side.

\--

The half second ended.  “Adrien?” said Marinette.

He looked back at her, and winked, and _that_ was Adrien too.  Cat Noir could wink as if he didn’t even notice it; Adrien tipped his whole head, like someone who couldn’t whisper trying to share a secret.  “I’m incognito,” he said.

“Ah.  Hence the disguise.”

“Exactly.  Can’t let anyone see me surveying the park.  Although, speaking of which, I could use an extra set of eyes.”

Luka was quietly but fervently talking with the other two; some kind of plot debate, it seemed.  Marinette stood up and joined Adrien.

They walked forward in silence for a moment.

“So.  Surveying the park, huh?”

He nodded, solemnly.  “Heard some interesting rumors about this place.  Some say it’s haunted.  Some say there’s buried treasure.”  He shrugged, “personally, I think it’s just a really nice place to go walking with a friend.”

Ah.  That kind of surveying.

“I mean, you wouldn’t think a cotton candy stand would survive on haunted ground, right?  And wouldn’t buried treasure push the real estate prices up too high as well?”

“I’m not so sure,” said Marinette.  “Maybe it’s a haunted stand.”  
“Manned by ghosts?” said Adrien.  “Only one way to be sure, I guess.”

He stepped up to the window, and said, “I’ll take a small, please.”

Barely twenty seconds later, he stepped back, and said, with a tint of regret, “Sorry I couldn’t get you one, just didn’t bring much money.”

Marinette smiled.  “It’s fine, I was already planning to stop here.  Besides, it always pays to double-check for ghosts.”

\--

As Marinette stepped forward, Adrien realized he was trapped.  He had no way out of this.  He couldn’t even hint at who he _really_ liked, because, after all, he _was_ the spitting image of Cat Noir, who had made no bones to Marinette about his feelings for Ladybug.  That would be tantamount to telling her about his secret identity.

So…  What if he _did_ tell her who he really was?  She’d understand where he was coming from.  She’d know how he knew her secret, and why he couldn’t accept her feelings.  She’d have a chance to move on, and to know why she had to.

But.  He’d promised Ladybug never to reveal his identity to anyone, and he’d _kept_ that promise.  He hadn’t told even _her_ who he really was, so how could he ever tell Marinette?

Marinette had stepped back again, with a similar bundle of cotton candy, and he was out of time for free contemplation.

It was good cotton candy.  Well, it was cotton candy; the recipe was basically just sugar. Not much room for interpretation there.

They walked on.

“I’d have to say,” said Adrien, eventually, “Probably not haunted.”

“I don’t know,” she said, “it seems too sweet to be real,” she said, with a laugh.

“Sounds like you,” he said.

His mind caught up with his tongue.  Oh.  No. She was turning red, and giggling nervously.

He hadn’t considered this possibility.  He’d expected maybe knowing about her crush might throw off his interactions with Marinette.  That would make perfect sense.  He’d expected it in the opposite direction, though, being unnecessarily rude, maybe, to drive her off.  Above all, he had not expected it to happen _that strongly_.

He cleared his throat, and stared resolutely forward, as if her expression and face weren’t drawing his eyes back.  Apparently some part of his brain hadn’t listened when he’d explained that _she wasn’t Ladybug_ , and were trying to channel the same state of mind he had around her.  He wasn’t even Cat Noir right now, which should have been his first warning to act like Adrien.  Did using a Miraculous have side effects, or had he just gone mad?  He’d have to ask Plagg a few questions, later.

In the meantime, he’d be fine if he could just avoid saying _overtly_ flirtatious things to Marinette.

 

He did pretty well at following that goal, when he was paying attention.  When he thought about the words coming out of him mouth, they were normal, friendly conversation. Over the course of the next five minutes, though, he lost his concentration three separate times, only for an instant, but enough, and had managed to fail his goal three times.  By the time he realized how badly he was failing his goal, and broke off conversation, Marinette looked almost drunk; she was red-faced, giggling, and staggering slightly.

 

He hadn’t _meant_ to say that her nervous giggles were almost _more_ adorable than her usual laughter.  He hadn’t even _noticed_ himself telling her that red was a good color on her as she was starting to blush.  There was no possible explanation for why he’d followed up _that_ comment by saying that pretty much _every_ color looked good on her. He’d been complimentary before, but he knew he hadn’t been that _over the top_ about it before.  It was like some kind of compulsion.

He had to get home, preferably before anyone noticed he was gone, and _definitely_ before he started flirting uncontrollably with someone else. He had to ask a few questions somewhere where he could talk frankly.  If nothing else, Plagg had been alive for a _long_ time; surely he had to know _something_ about what was going on.

\--

Marinette didn’t have the slightest recollection of going home.  She could remember her own head dragging her up the stairs, and onto her bed.  She collapsed, a giggly mess, and, through a combination of oxygen deprivation and glee, passed out on top of her bed in an instant.

\--

“Alright, Plagg,” said Adrien, “we have to talk.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

Plagg looked up at him, nonplussed.  Eventually, he said, “Alright, this sounds like a three pack problem.”

He flew over to the cabinet, and began pulling it open.

“What?”

“Three packs.  This might take a while, so I want my cheese on hand _now_.”

…

Three packs of cheese sat on an end table, as Plagg reclined next to them, looking for all the world like an ancient queen being fed grapes by devoted servants.  Every so often, he reached out and deftly consumed a piece.

“Alright,” he said, “I’m ready.”

Where to begin…  How about at the beginning.  The most basic part.

“Does using a Miraculous affect your mind?”

Plagg stared up at him.  “Starting with the scary questions, I see.”

Adrien shrugged.  “That’s my question.”

Plagg seemed to consider.  “Well, I mean, being a hero can mess with anyone.  Some people let it go to their heads.”

\--

Adrien looked downcast.

“That’s not you, though,” said Plagg.  He sighed, “the answer to your question is… Eh.  You’re not _quite_ the same afterwards.  When you’re Cat Noir, you’re stronger, faster, and,,” he shrugged back and forth for a second, and grabbed another piece of cheese, “you’re powered by destruction.”

“What!?”

“I mean, that should have been obvious.  Destruction’s my whole thing.  Cataclysm?  Literally destroys anything?”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, that _obviously_ doesn’t mean you’re a villain.  It just means you become a little bit,” he paused, “chaotic?”

Seeing Adrien’s worried look, he added, “Not what you’re thinking.  Usually, it just makes people bolder.  It’s already kind of happened, if you think about it.”

“What do you mean.”

Plagg rolled his eyes and took another bite.  “You literally jumped off of a building because Ladybug told you to, with _no_ intentions of becoming Cat Noir.”

“I trusted her!”

“The point is you literally jumped off a building.  You didn’t have the guts for that before, no matter how much you trusted her.”

Adrien sighed.  “And this whole thing with Marinette?  Is that just me, or is that more Cat Noir?”  
“It’s a funny thing about Cat Noir and Ladybug.  They’re _always_ tied together.  Creation and destruction, the whole thing.  Most of the previous Cats have been strongly drawn to Ladybug, and the ones that weren’t…” He fell silent.  “Well, anyway, that’s why it’s important to make sure the two of you get along.  What I’m saying is that the two of you kind of bend around each other, not always romantically, but strongly.”

Adrien nodded, and then, “I suppose that makes sense, but you’re just raising more questions, and you didn’t answer my first one!  What does Ladybug have to do with Marinette?”

Wow.  He didn’t envy Marinette, trying to deal with this idiot.  Plagg knew he was terrible at keeping secrets, but apparently Adrien was worse at spotting them when they were literally stated out loud.  If he could just figure out some kind of cover, now, he could avoid Tikki’s wrath.  The first step was to shove a large lump of cheese in his face to stall for time.

Eventually, after a long time chewing, he said, carefully “If you’re always looking for Ladybug, and you can’t find her, it makes sense the way you interact with her might come through with people who remind you of her.”  That was true, even if it was a bit misleading.

“Any more questions?  I’m starting to run out of cheese.”

Adrien laughed, “How do you eat that much cheese?  You’re, like, the size of one of those packages, and you’ve already eaten a pack and a half.”

Plagg shrugged.  “I get hungry.  Anything else?”

Adrien sat there for a bit longer.  Eventually, he said, “I know you can’t tell me about Ladybug, but what about her Kwami?”

“You want to know about Tikki?”

“That’s her name?”

“Yeah.  She’s… Nice.  Ish.  Really excitable, unlike yours truly.  She cares a lot more than I do about keeping secrets, and following rules, and being nice to people, and, well, a lot of things, but she’s so,” he cast about for the word, “ _bubbly_ , and earnest that you don’t notice she refuses to tell you anything.  She’s a lot smarter than she acts, but still just as friendly.”

Adrien chuckled.  “If she’s more careful about keeping secrets than you, she must be _pretty careful_.”

“I didn’t say more careful.  I just said she cares more.  Personally, I don’t care at all if you know that Ladybug is-“ he caught himself.  “If you know who she is.  I just know that if I tell you, Tikki is _not_ going to be happy.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d say you were scared of-

“I am absolutely scared of her.”  Plagg wasn’t joking.  “She’s extremely powerful, and takes her job _very_ seriously.  I gave away a secret _once_ , a _long_ time ago, and I’m only _just_ getting my sense of taste back, and only for _some_ foods.  Haven’t given another secret away since.  Well, not on purpose.”  He pulled off another chunk of cheese.  “Joke’s on her, though; you forget you can’t taste anything, and when it comes back, you get to discover everything again.  I didn’t even _care_ about cheese back then, and now?” he popped it in his mouth, and grinned.  “Heavenly.”

“Still, as long as it’s not on business, it’s nice to see her every now and then.”  He shoved the contents of the remaining pack of cheese in his mouth, and it was gone in an instant.

\--

Had any of that actually happened?  She had vague memories of her face burning, as Adrien had showered her with compliments.  It _felt_ like a dream, but parts of it were so clear.

She felt a buzz in her pocket.

She pulled out her phone.

One (1) unread message.  She opened it.

“Plot synopsis mow?  y/n”

Another message pinged in.

“*now”

…

 “Sure”

“btw, pretty cool of you to do a soundtrack for it”

…

“Fun to see her get into something”

“Usually shes really quiet”

…

So.  It had actually happened.  Everything she remembered.  Adrien had actually done that.  And that story she’d heard, the one that had been so incomprehensible.  It sounded like fun, though.

She sat up against the wall, and another message arrived.

“Text or talk”

She considered.

“Either”

…

“The whole thing starts with this peasant girl called rubygleam, who …

Marinette settled in.  This felt like it might take a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incidentally, the name of that song in plaintext is Doot Doot, just in case you were wondering.


	5. Reaper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladybug and Cat Noir take on their most dangerous villain yet, one who can win any fight with a single strike.  
> Alya confirms her suspicions.

It had been two days since the last attack.  Thankfully, Zombizou had been effectively harmless. No injuries, only kisses.  A few people had walked into doors, but it seemed like Ladybug’s reset had handled everything pretty effectively, so no harm done.  No, the biggest issue was that she’d said a few choice words regarding Cat Noir and getting his kisses.  It wasn’t that he’d come calling; she wasn’t sure he even remembered, since he’d been a bit zombified at the time.  Chloe obviously wouldn’t tell him, even if she _had_ been paying attention, since they never talked.  Actually, Chloe was a whole issue unto herself, one that Marinette would have to think about further later.  No, the bigger issue was that she’d said it at all.  She couldn’t really figure out _why_ she’d said it, it had just, _come out_.  And now, she was stuck wrestling with herself over the question of whether she actually _liked_ Cat Noir.

In the time it took her to think it, she’d already paced back and forth across her room several times.

It was no good wearing holes in the carpet, she was going to take a walk.

As she stepped out of the bakery doors, her train of thought continued.

There was no way she liked Cat Noir, right?  He always acted so shallow, always showing off and boasting.  Maybe it was amusing, in some capacity, but only in that it was fun to watch his antics, not like she actually-

But there was the issue, wasn’t it.  She’d seen more than that.  He acted like that around her because… Well, probably because he was trying to flirt with her.  When he was around Marinette, things were different.  She liked him much better when she was Marinette.  He left the cheesy pickup lines and just _talked_ to her.  She could actually see that he was a _person_ then, a person who had to deal with the same kind of pressure and worry that she was constantly facing.  It was like she wasn’t even talking to Cat Noir at that point, for all that he could carry her from one rooftop to another without ever touching the ground.  He was just a boy in a mask, who really _did_ care about Ladybug.

And there was the issue.  Not the issue with him.  The issue with her.  He’d show up one night, badly bruised and painfully human, and with an earnestness he didn’t usually show, tell her that he really did _love_ Ladybug.  And she, like a fool, would look into the eyes of what could have been her own crush’s body double, and she _wanted_ to believe that it really _was_ him, for all she knew that it wasn’t.  Those were the moments, the ones when she could almost forget who he was, and who he wasn’t, when it was hard to refuse, and just as hard not to reveal who she really was.

The more she thought about it, the more wound up she got, and the harder it was to get anything done.  She couldn’t fix it, not without some serious explanations that she simply could not give, and how was she supposed to ignore it?  The whole issue was _in her head_ , where she couldn’t look away or close her eyes.  So there she was, with a thorn in her side, trying to walk her problems out of her mind.

It was maddening.

\--

Tikki had, for her part, been very glad that Marinette hadn’t gone back yet and looked at _why_ she thought Adrien couldn’t be Cat Noir recently.

\--

Alya, meanwhile, was encroaching on Marinette’s turf.  Namely, she was watching Adrien.

Thus far, Adrien hadn’t done the slightest thing to make her think that he _wasn’t_ Cat Noir, but she needed proof that he _was.  I_ f she could just do that, she could file this one in the books, and move straight on to Ladybug.

Right now, Adrien was walking around in a hat and sunglasses, which Marinette had told her he’d been wearing a few days ago.  He’d said he wore it to go incognito, apparently.

They were just crossing a road, Alya a good 20 feet behind him, when something odd happened.  Marinette crossed his path, only a few seconds after him.  Alya couldn’t talk to her, for risk of losing her main target.  She didn’t have to, though; Marinette wasn’t her target, and didn’t really have anything to do with her search.  If she really wanted to know, she could ask later.

When she looked back at Adrien, though, something was different.  He was standing taller, and walking more purposefully.  She couldn’t see his face, but if she hadn’t known it was him, she’d have thought...

_That he was somebody else._

Now _that_ was something.  Adrien had a _persona_.  Even more interesting, it moved in a _very_ familiar way.  She pulled out her phone, and tried to close the distance a bit.

15 feet.  10 feet.  Perfect.

She started recording.

Oh yeah.  This wasn’t your average student’s walk.  This was _hero_ material.  Now if she could just…

She moved a bit further forward, keeping him in frame.  The more angles she had, the better she could compare later.  Perfect.  Perfect.  Now, all she had to do was…

“Practicing for the runway?” she said.  Adrien jumped, and when he’d settled back, he was walking like normal again.

“What?”

“Sorry,” she said, “saw you walking, and you were kind of,” she did an imitation, “strutting.”  Accurate.

“Just,” he said, and paused, almost imperceptibly, “something I tried recently.  I thought it was fun.  Are you recording me?”

She put her phone away, “just wanted to catch that swagger on tape.”  Had he said _recently?_  “Recently?”

He shrugged, “last time I went out dressed like this.”

“Uh huh,” she said, “and you haven’t been finding reasons to strut since before then?”

He laughed, what could have been awkwardly, or could have been nervously.  “What do you mean?”

She shrugged.  “Oh, I don’t know,” she lied.

\--

It felt like he was going to be sick.  Did she know?  She was talking like she knew, but if she _did_ know, why didn’t she say so?  Alya wouldn’t blackmail him, he knew that, but there was a chance that she’d tell her followers, right?  If they knew, then pretty soon, everyone would know, and _that_ would be awful.  The fame of both a hero and a model, and he’d never be able to get away from either of them.  His _father_ would find out.

He couldn’t let her know.  No way.  He had to throw her off somehow.  He had to show he had nothing to hide, or _something_.

“So,” he said, after a bit, “what are _you_ doing out here?”  Not the best cover, but it seemed to throw her off.

Actually, she seemed half-stumped, and it took a surprisingly long time to respond.

\--

Life wasn’t easy for a public sanitation worker.  He was supposed to keep the streets clear of refuse, as best as he could, and he would easily admit that it was the least satisfying job around.  It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy making things clean, or that he didn’t care about his job.  The issue was that every time he turned around, some new piece of garbage was in his line of sight.  He’d sweep up some haphazardly scattered bits of paper, someone’s movie ticket, perhaps, or a receipt that they didn’t need anymore, and when he turned around, some inconsiderate person had left their cup on a table, and the wind had knocked it off.  Worse still, some people didn’t just leave litter through negligence; they seemed to regard the whole world as their rubbish bin.  He’d moved as quickly as he could, but his job was eternally understaffed, and he knew that by the time he reached the end of a street, the first part was already dirtied again.  Today, he could swear people had been doing it on purpose, just for a laugh.  Obviously, that was ridiculous, but it was starting to get to him anyway.  If people would just _stop_ making a mess, the city might actually stay _clean_ for once.  That wasn’t about to happen though, was it.

\--

Marinette walked on, street after street, turning mostly at random.  For a moment, she’d be along the river, and then across a bridge, then onwards, into a series of roads that were twisting around almost as much as her thoughts, back in on themselves, going nowhere.  Ten minutes passed.  Nothing had changed, except that she was tired of thinking.  She decided to head home.

In just a few minutes, she was almost back to where she started.

She looked up, suddenly.  She’d been too busy in her own mind to notice, but the streets around her weren’t usually this quiet, were they?  That was strange.  She kept walking on, now paying more attention.  There _was_ a sound in the air, not a happy one, either.  The cars at the side of the street were all empty.  The street _itself_ was empty, except…  There was something in the air, like a mist.  It must have been thicker than it looked, because the weather seemed strangely overcast, despite the sun shining in a cloudless sky.

Then, from an alley down the street, she saw two familiar figures.  It was Alya, pulling Adrien behind her.

\--

It was a few moments earlier.

They’d been talking for what had probably been 15 minutes, now.   He’d successfully gotten the topic back away from anything that could reference his identity, and they were talking about their mutual friends, as they kept on their way through the crowd.

That was when they heard screaming.  It was a strange sound, like a wave.  It rose up, slowly getting closer.  They stood still for an instant, even as the crowd looked back, trying to find the source of the sound.  Then without another word, they cut across the running throng, and they were in an alley.  The wave of screams closed on them.

The crowd began to thin out, as the main group passed their hiding-spot.  As they watched, though, something strange happened.  A slash of light flashed forward, terminating in some of the running crowd.  As it hit them, they slowed, and collapsed.  A strange lightness spread across their bodies, and in a moment, their colors faded, and their edges blurred.

And then another wave of the light, and another, and another, until all that remained of the crowd were the strange, silent shapes of them.  They still moved, but slowly, as if without a will.  As they fell, they seemed to sap the light from the air.  It was the middle of the day, so the streetlights were off, but now, it was dark as dusk, without any of the color.

Their first sign of the villain himself was his weapon.  A curved, glistening blade slid silently into sight, no longer swinging, followed by a long handle.  A scythe.  Following the weapon was a black-robed figure, with bone-white skin.  It floated a few feet above the ground, moving deceptively fast.  It glided on, and just as it was almost past their little hiding spot, it stopped.  Its hooded head turned, and showed a sunken, wasted face, just as pale as the rest of it.

“Trying to hide?”

Alya grabbed his hand and _pulled_ with more force than he’d have expected from her.

Back down the alley.  Adrien could see the scythe swing down, and another slash of light flew out.

They turned the corner, just before the slash of light came down on them.

“You can’t run,” came the grim voice.

“You need to get out of here, _right now_ ,” said Alya.

“What about you?”

She gave him a look, “No problem.  Ladybug can fix things afterwards.  But first, she needs to _make_ it to afterwards.  Understand?”

She knew.  She was _telling him_ that she knew.  She was offering to sacrifice herself.

He nodded, a lump in his throat.

“Now run.  I’ll buy you some time.”

\--

Alya did not enjoy fighting villains alone, and yet somehow it had happened twice recently.

Keep him distracted…  She might have something for that.

The Reaper rounded the corner.  As he saw her, his scythe was already coming up.

“Hey!” she shouted.

The scythe stopped, for a second.

“I’ve got a question for you.”

…  “Yes?”  The voice was literally chilling.  The sun was dying in the sky.

She pulled out her phone.  Adrien had to be a significant distance behind her now, right?

“How would you feel about a quick interview?  Tell the people of Paris what’s got you so discontented?  Could be therapeutic.”  She started recording.

“The people of Paris have drawn the Reaper’s ire.  They spread chaos and make messes wherever they go.  They have proven themselves unworthy to possess their bodies.  Soon, they will not have them.  Then, all can be clean.”

The scythe came down, and the whole of the blade hit Alya.

It passed through her, leaving no cut.  She could feel something in her chest, though, like spreading ice.

“Wait,” she said, as the ice spread through her, “why does the Grim Reaper care about keeping things clean?  That’s got nothing to do with his whole” The last few words vanished, as the strange sensation hit her neck.

\--

Marinette seen the whole scene from down the street.  She didn’t know why Alya had been with Adrien, but right now, she was just glad that he’d escaped.  The streets were clear, though, so all she had to do was hide behind a car, and whisper, “Tikki; spots –

A black blur tackled her to the side.  Cat Noir managed to maneuver his way under her, as a flash of light cut through the car she’d been behind, right where she’d been.  They hit the ground, and he faintly gasped faintly as she rammed his chest.

“Careful,” he said, springing to his feet, and pulling her off of the main road.

He was fast, of course, faster than she could keep up with.  Her feet barely touched the ground, but she stayed up as they turned a corner.

“He’s pretty slow,” he said, “but we’ve got to move fast; I want to be here when Ladybug arrives.”

She could just barely see the scythe rounding the corner.  He saw it too.

“Alright,” he said, “no time to waste, then.”

He scooped her into his arms, and leaped.  Rooftop. Another jump.  She’d barely had the time to realize what he’d done before she saw a flash of light coming for them, missing by a bare margin.   They were half a dozen streets over by the time she realized he was taking her back home.

They landed, and he set her down.

“Alright,” he said, “You stay inside.  Stay safe, it looks like he’s been keeping to the streets, mostly.”  He went to jump, and then looked back.  “You’re alright, right?”

She nodded, absently.  She could still feel where his arms had pressed into her.

He turned all the way back.  “Marinette, are you okay?”

Some fragment of her, the part that didn’t remember that it was Ladybug, wanted to say that she’d feel safer in his arms than at home.  She didn’t say that.  Why would she say that?  No, all she had to say was “I’m fine!”

He nodded, slowly, keeping an eye on her.  Then, he turned, and jumped.

“Ugh.”  Stupid Cat Noir and his stupid flirting and his _stupid_ making sure she was okay.  It had _no right_ to be that distracting.  For the millionth time, she reminded herself _why_ she couldn’t accept his attention.  No, scratch that, he hadn’t even _paid_ her any special attention just then, just the ordinary care a hero might show _any_ average person.  She was just stupid.  And there she went, getting unfocused all over again, over nothing.

“Marinette?  What are you waiting for?” came Tikki’s voice.

She shook it off.  “Nothing,” she said.  “Tikki, spots on!”

\--

It should have been midday, and the sun was visible in the sky, technically, but it looked like a lackluster moon.  It was the villain, of course. Speaking of him, though, _there_ was the Reaper.  He hovered above the pavement, with his scythe unmoving.  Around him… Well, they were ghosts, plain and simple, bodiless spirits, almost invisible at this distance.  The Reaper seemed to be admiring his work, turning slowly on the spot, nodding.

That suited Cat Noir just fine.  If he was just looking around, he wasn’t causing further damage, which meant _he_ could wait for Ladybug for now.

“Hello, milady,” he said.  She landed on the roof behind him.  He blinked, then shook his head.  He turned, and leaned back casually on the wall he’d been looking over.  “So…  How _are_ you on this fine afternoon?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Mostly just ready to take on a villain.”

He grinned.  “Same here.  So.  I don’t know how much you’ve seen of him, but he looks pretty dangerous.”

“Not surprising.”  
“It seems like if he even hits you once, you turn into one of those ghost things, and I’m guessing that’s not good.”

“So we have to win without getting hit.”

He shrugged.  “Looks like it.”

“We’ll need to get this right on the first try, then.  One slip-up and it’s game over.”

“Yup.”

They sat there.

“The problem is, we’ve got no idea what we’ll get from Lucky Charm.”

“Nope.”

“Do we know anything else about him?”

He cast his mind back.

“He likes things clean.”

“What?”

He shrugged again.  “Just something I heard.”

“Huh.”

They sat there.

“So.  You’re saying if we can get things dirty, we might throw him off?”

He was moving on, now, apparently on the hunt for more civilians.

“Alright,” said Ladybug, “Alright.  I think I can make that work.”

\--

This was good.  The streets were almost deserted now, and soon enough, he could begin the last cleaning the city would ever need.

A figure caught his eye.  A figure in red.

The voice spoke in his mind again, “it is time for you to fulfill your end of the bargain.”

“With pleasure,” he said.  He began advancing.  “Now; where is your partner?”

“He’ll be joining us,” said Ladybug.  She flicked her wrist and he floated back a bit to avoid the strike.

“He’ll be joining _me_ ,” said the Reaper, bringing his scythe around.  “You’ll already be gone by then.”  One slash in the air, then two, three, four… She was nimble, but even she had to jump back at that.  She rounded a corner.

He followed.

When he turned the corner, she was already down the street, but she had stopped moving, weapon at the ready.  He lashed a few more strikes out, and she dodged away again.

 _“_ She is leading you into a trap _,”_ came the voice again.

“A foolish decision.”

\--

Prideful villains would be the death of him.  Every time someone got a little power, they immediately decided that they couldn’t _possibly_ be defeated by the heroes they’d seen defeat every villain before them.  He’d be angry, but then, he couldn’t blame them.  That was how he’d felt when he’d first obtained a Miraculous.  He hadn’t _stopped_ feeling that way for a long time, not until Emilie…  Well.  That was what he was trying to fix, wasn’t it?  An old mistake.  Soon, he’d be able to start forgetting it.  In fact, he could fix things tonight, if his villain…  His villain…

The trap had sprung, and he hadn’t even been paying attention.

\--

It was like fighting three enemies at once.  One in front, with a yo-yo, one behind, with a baton and the other…  All around him, dust kicked up in the fight cloyed at his eyes, and grated on his mind.  This road would need a great deal of cleaning, when he was done here; dirt caked the road, and the road-work equipment.  The pavement was unevenly broken.  Once he’d finished with the surface layer of grime, he’d need to file that edge down.

All he had to do to get the time to clean things was take them out, but the dirt…!

No.  No.  He could do this.  He just had to take them one at a time.

\--

“Lucky Charm!” she shouted.

…

“A drill?  What am I supposed to do with this?”

She looked around.  Where would a drill go?  This one looked like it was meant for screws, and…  Wait.  Screws.  Road construction sign.  Fire hydrant.  Loose dirt.  She glanced up.  Sky.

Perfect.

Cat Noir was buying her time, as usual, dodging, weaving, keeping their enemy occupied.  All the time she’d need, hopefully.

First, the sign.  All she had to do was unscrew it, and as she put the drill to the metal, she found out just how fast they could spin.  Now, metal sign, so all she needed was-  
“Cat Noir!” she shouted, sign in hand, and pointed at the fire hydrant.

He nodded.

“CATACLYSM!”

He narrowly dodged a swing of the scythe on his way over.

The fire hydrant was eliminated, and in its place, a torrent of water, blasting into the sky.

She pulled him around to her side, and pushed the flat sheet of metal into the stream.

The blast would have made it impossible for most people to hold the sign in place, but being a superhero had its perks.  A splash of water hit the specter, and she angled it further down.  A bit more, a bit more, and…

Clods of dirt and mud sprayed up from the ground, some hitting the Reaper in the face, adding some color to his otherwise pallid face, and some simply dirtying the road.

He screamed, and then coughed as some dirt made it to his throat.  The scream resumed as he began swinging his scythe at her like a man possessed, which, technically, he was.  Four, then seven, then twelve, in the time it took the first to arrive.

Nothing but sky above, which meant she could make use of the last part of her plan.  With a jump, she made it onto the sign…  The sign with a massive upward force beneath it.

Ladybug could jump high.  That was just a fact.  With a watery spring beneath her, she put herself far, far above her enemy.

It was only an instant later that she realized that being in midair made her an easy target for such an enraged foe.  As the first strike landed, she felt a terrible coldness in her stomach.

\--

The Reaper was fully focused on Ladybug, and wasn’t even looking at him.  Apparently, the dirt had really enraged him.

Cat Noir wasn’t about to take the chance for granted.  He rushed in, and with one deft kick that the Reaper didn’t even see coming, split the scythe in two.

\--

She landed, Legs freezing cold, the chill in her stomach now up to her chest.  One of her hands had gotten hit, too, and felt like it was submerged in ice water.  There was a butterfly right in front of her, ready for purification.

She put her freezing hand down to her side to retrieve her yo-yo, but it passed through.  She almost panicked, but quickly tried with her other hand.  The chill was in that shoulder, now.

Time to wrap this up.

Even using the wrong hand, the yo-yo only wobbled slightly, and still perfectly caught the Akuma out of the air.

“-------- -------- -----------,” she said, but the words didn’t come out as easily as the now purified butterfly did, as her tongue slowly caught the chill, which had now made it to her elbow.

She had to reset things, _now_ , or she’d end up a ghost, unable to put things back.  For that, she needed-

The drill landed in her hand, and Cat Noir nodded at her.

“--------- ----------!” She tried to shout as the charm flew into the sky.  The chill finally made it to her hand, and there was no part of her that wasn’t cold.  Everything was icy and alone.  It felt as if she would never-

The wave hit her, and suddenly, all at once, her feeling returned.  The sun came back, too, as the unnatural night ended.

And there she was, standing in a suddenly very crowded street of former ghosts.  On the ground before her knelt a man in a jumpsuit with a broom.  He seemed confused.

Cat Noir heaved a sigh of relief near her, even as the crowd burst into applause.  She felt the sentiment.  That had been far too close, closer than anything before it.

\--

Some time had passed, and Alya wasn’t surprised in the slightest when Adrien came over to talk while Marinette was out of earshot.

He seemed to fight with himself, and then said, “Look.  You can’t tell anyone, alright?”

She looked up at him with an innocent smile.  “Tell anyone what?”

He inhaled, and she laughed.  “Re-lax, I didn’t even write it down anywhere.”

He still seemed concerned.  “Alright,” she said, “how about this…” She pulled out her phone, and scrolled through her gallery.  Down, down, down, down, there.

“I made _this_ little beauty a _long_ time ago, before I thought it was even possible.”

Adrien stared at the screen, which now showed a poorly crafted image of him, Adrien, in a black mask and a catsuit.

Alya brought the phone down, and clicked on the trash icon.

‘ _Are you sure.’_

_Confirm._

She shrugged.  “Trust me.  I’m not about to go making a couple of superheroes’ lives any harder than they need to be.”

“Then, do you know who Ladybug is?”

She shook her head.  “No, and even if I did, I couldn’t tell you...”

He nodded, hesitated, and began to walk away.

So.  She’d been right.  Adrien really _was_ Cat Noir, and now she knew.  And he knew that she knew.

She didn’t like keeping secrets.  Her whole _thing_ was finding the truth; it was part of why she had started the Ladyblog; she wanted to accurately report what was going on with Paris’ resident superheroes.  The worst part wasn’t that she couldn’t update her blog with the information, though; it was that she couldn’t even tell _Marinette_.  She hadn’t been able to tell her about being Rena Rouge, and now she couldn’t tell her about Cat Noir, which was way worse, because she wanted _so bad_ to see Marinette flip out over the fact that her crush, who she’d described as ‘Way more legit than Cat Noir,’ actually _was_ Cat Noir.  As Marinette walked back into the room, a smile crept over Alya’s face at the idea.  How would she even react?  Obviously she wouldn’t be finding out any time soon, but it was fun to think about.

\--

Alya was wrong.  Even if she wouldn’t know what she was seeing, she’d see it, soon enough.


	6. Switch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get hectic and confusing as Ladybug and Cat Noir face down the villain 'Switch.'  
> Ladybug and Cat Noir learn a few things about each other that could compromise their identities. Rena Rouge sleeps through a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. We've kissed canon farewell in this chapter. Goodbye, sweet canon, but I wanted to do something.

Marinette walked into class, almost late.  Her eyes, as usual, fixed on Adrien for a second, who greeted her with a smile that, casual though it was, managed to fill her with warmth.  She’d be feeling that smile for the next several minutes.  Today, though, she had something else in mind.  She looked back a row, at Alya.  Sure enough, just visible at her collar was a coppery chain.  She couldn’t see what was at the end of that chain, but she didn’t need to; she already knew.  After all, she was the reason Alya had it.

\--

It had been just a few days ago.  She’d finished a round of training with Cat Noir, and she’d been relaxing on some remote rooftop, well away from prying eyes.  She’d been going back over their most recent villains in her mind.  There were so many by now that sometimes it was hard to keep track of them.  She’d realized something distressing; They’d been getting stronger. Well, not really reliably, of course; Hawk Moth still seemed to churn them out in bulk more than anything, and a solid percentage of them went down in only a few minutes.  Those weren’t the ones she remembered, though, and the ones that lasted longer, did more damage, had been growing more common.  Every time, it seemed like they barely made it out, and every time, the margin for error became smaller.

Worse, though, it wasn’t just that they were always on the edge of failure, it was how they’d been making up the difference; Cat Noir had taken too many hits on her behalf.  Actually, Cat Noir took too many hits in general, but the point remained that every time he was out of a fight, _she_ was left alone.  She was the only one who could purify an Akuma of course, so from a _technical_ perspective, it was better to lose Cat Noir than her, but from a personal perspective, seeing him beaten to the ground so _she_ wouldn’t be, or having him turned against her, for the umpteenth time, was taking a toll.  For one thing, she hated to see him injured; he was her friend after all.  The other side, though, was that after he was down, she was alone, facing a villain who they’d had trouble with _together_.  She had to pull a victory from the jaws of defeat, and every time, she felt like she was on the point of a nervous breakdown when everything was over.  When it was both of them, it felt like they could take anyone, but with nobody to watch her back…  It wasn’t easy.

Rena Rouge could bridge that gap, and _had been_ bridging that gap.  The problem, though, was making sure she was around.  She couldn’t keep running back every time she needed help to pick up the Fox Miraculous.  She needed to cut out the middleman.

Her relaxation time was slowly falling apart as the thoughts kept coming, but now she had an idea, one that might let her sleep a bit easier at night. 

The only problem would be convincing Master Fu.  Cat Noir wouldn’t be an issue, of course.  Even if he didn’t like not knowing who Rena Rouge really was, he’d already mentioned that it mostly just bothered him how she had to keep running off in the middle of fights. 

No, Cat Noir wouldn’t be the problem.  She might want to talk to Tikki first, though.

She slipped into a deserted alley, and detransformed behind a dumpster.  She slipped into the building.  As usual, there was nobody in the waiting room.  For that matter, she couldn’t remember seeing _anyone_ here, _ever_.  How did Master Fu even afford this place?  For that matter, did it even have an address?  Still, if it was this empty, she could talk to Tikki here, for a while.

“Why are we here again, Marinette?”

“I, had a thought.  I wanted to run it past you first.”

“Okay…”

She explained.  Tikki probably already knew every little worry that was going through her head; after all, she was _always_ there, and Marinette didn’t really have any secrets from her.  She listened intently, like she always did, nodding occasionally.

“I mean,” she finished, “if you think about it, if we lose once, Hawk Moth wins, right?  And we already know that Rena Rouge can be there, _sometimes_ , but the problem is that one of these days, having to delay things to go get the Miraculous, then find Alya, it’s going to come back to bite us.  We need her easier to access.”

Tikki slowly nodded, and looked over.  Marinette followed the glance, and jumped.

Master Fu was two chairs to her left.  She hadn’t seen him arrive, and he hadn’t said a word, but he seemed to have been listening carefully.

“Master Fu!”

He nodded.  “I told you before that it is my job to keep careful watch over the Miraculous.  I’m sure you remember that.  It has been for this reason that I have been so reluctant to allow the use of another.  However,” he said, raising a hand as she opened her mouth to interrupt, “more than that, I am aware of the price that one failure can have.”

He continued, “To allow another Miraculous is dangerous.  To leave you to face ever-increasing odds, though, is much worse.”  He sighed.  “And you are correct.  Sometimes, speed is the surest form of security.”

“So…”

“So, you are right.  I have been very careful not to risk more than necessary.  I said we would need to unlock all of their secrets before allowing another Miraculous to be allowed out permanently.”  He smiled.  “I’ve read a great deal, though, and, I’ve had encouragement.  Follow me.”

She followed, as he led her into the back room.

“You see, your friend has proven herself quite exceptional, in Trixx’s eyes.  For the first day after he returned, he only spoke about returning to her.  I had thought it best to carefully study Ladybug and Cat Noir, before studying anything else, but, he made me reconsider.  There is much less written about the Fox Miraculous than about the two of you.  It was much easier to read through carefully, and with Trixx constantly asking after it, I had plenty of motivation.  He has been eager to join her more permanently.”

He noticed her look, as he walked to the record player.  “I still would be against this, but, I cannot deny your logic.  And now,” he said, pressing the buttons on the record player, “that I can truthfully say I have read and interpreted every page, I know many subtleties that could have been dangerous if missed.”  A new set of buttons appeared.

“Trixx knows what he must know.  He doesn’t have access to any new powers, of course, but he will be able to avoid certain pitfalls that could have proven dangerous.”  He pulled out the Fox Miraculous, and flipped the case open.

Trixx formed in the air, and looked at Marinette.  Then, at Master Fu.

“Another mission?”

“Not exactly.”

Trixx froze, and then said, “Do you mean…?”

Master Fu nodded.  “Marinette made a compelling case.” He laughed, good-naturedly. “Almost as compelling as your constant complaining.”

“Oh!  Yes!  Yesyesyesyesyes!  I’m going _back out!”_   Trixx stopped.  “And it’s still Alya, right?”

Marinette nodded.  The celebration resumed.  Master Fu handed Marinette the case with the Miraculous inside.  She slotted it in her bag, down at the bottom.

Trixx finally noticed Tikki.

“Hey Tikki!”

Tikki rushed out.  It didn’t look easy to give a hug when your arms were only a fraction of your head’s size, but they managed well enough.

“It’s been so long!” said Trixx.

“It’s only been a few days,” said Tikki.

“I know!”

“Alright you two,” said Marinette, “We’re heading out now, so if you’re gonna talk, do it in the bag, alright?”  They sequestered themselves.  “I’ll leave you with Alya tonight,” she said to Trixx.

“Fine by me,” he said, “we’ve got some catching up to do before then.”

“So,” Trixx said, as Marinette started for the door, “Have you seen Plagg around?”

“I’ve only seen him once.”

They kept talking.

…

Like she’d promised, she’d waited until later, when night had fallen, to deliver the Kwami.

Now.  How to do this.

First, she had to find her.  That wasn’t much of a challenge.  She’d been to Alya’s home often enough that with a bit of thinking, she was able to find the right window.  She went to the top of the building, and slowly lowered herself down to the balcony.  A bright light was coming from an otherwise dark room.  As she looked in, sure enough, she saw Alya, sitting at a laptop, headphones on, typing at something.  The door was closed.

She knocked softly on the window.  Alya didn’t move.  She tapped a bit harder.  _That_ got her attention.  She turned around, and jumped at the strange figure at her window, silhouetted against the skyline of Paris.

She backed away, still staring.

Ladybug didn’t move, and instead tried to wave, with the box in her hand.  Alya squinted at her, and then her eyes widened.

She stood up and locked the door.  Then, she came over and pulled the window open.

“Ladybug!?  Is there trouble?”

“Not exactly.  Can I come in? I need to talk to you about something.”

“Of course!”  Alya slid the door open, and Ladybug entered.

For a second neither of them said a word.

“So,” said Ladybug, “you’re probably wondering why I’m here, right?”

“I’d guess another villain, but, you just said it wasn’t.”

“It isn’t.”  …  “You’ve kept a close eye on things, right?  You’ve kept an eye on the villains we’re up against?”

She nodded again.

“They’re getting stronger,” said Ladybug, eventually.  “Every time we fight one, we risk losing our Miraculous, and we have to fight _every one of them_.  We can’t let them terrorize Paris, obviously, and we’re getting stronger, too, but we need backup, more and more often.”

“Of course,” said Alya, “that’s why you ask me.”

“I mean that we need help, and we can’t always afford to spend time tracking you down.”  She held out the box.  Alya looked down at it.  “So this is yours, if you want it.”

“Do you mean that you’re…?”

Ladybug smiled.  “You don’t have to give it back this time.”

Alya didn’t move, staring wide-eyed at the box.  “I know I said we could do more work together anytime, but I really wasn’t expecting you to just…  Thank you, Ladybug.”

“It’ll be just like when you’ve helped us before.  Just remember, you don’t tell _anyone_ who you really are.  Not your parents, not your siblings.  Not even your best friend.  It’s even more important now than it was before.”

“I haven’t,” she said, “and I won’t”

“Good,” she said.  “Now, it’s late, but before I get out of here, have you got any questions?”

Alya laughed.  “I have so many, but you couldn’t answer most of them, and like you said, it’s late. Anyway, I can always ask you next time there’s trouble, right?”

“Of course.  See you later, then.”

“Later, Ladybug.”

\--

She stayed up later than usual that night, for all she’d talked about it getting late.  She hadn’t really had a chance to talk to Trixx yet, since she was always in a hurry either to transform, or Ladybug was about to detransform and she had to return the Miraculous.  This time, she’d have all the time she could ask for.

By the time she fell asleep, Alya had asked about 50 questions, of which Trixx had been able to answer about ten.

\--

Marinette sat down next to her friend.

Alya’s eyes were bloodshot and she had dark circles around them, but she didn’t look tired.  She was grinning, and seemed possessed of an unnatural energy, which was better than Marinette had been able to say on _her_ first day of proper superhero work.  Of course, _she’d_ gone into it blind, without even knowing whether Cat Noir would even be there next time.  It had taken several villains to realize that he was actually reliable, and just as dedicated to the job as she was.  Alya, meanwhile, had two superheroes who’d been doing this for months, _and_ her own prior experience.

“So,” said Marinette, “you seem excited about something.”

Alya looked over her, and opened her mouth to say something.

And stopped.

“I don’t know,” she said, turning back to the front of the class, “I’ve just got a good feeling about today.”

That was Alya, alright.  She’d become a superhero, which was a difficult, dangerous job, with some serious dangers that she’d _already_ experienced, and she was just excited for her first day on the job.

Marinette, of course, didn’t comment on any of this. After all, what did _she_ know about superheroes?  Who _was_ Rena Rouge?  Surely not the girl who looked exactly like her sitting next to her.

Wait.

Shoot.  That was actually really worrying.  Alya would actually get to _see_ both Ladybug _and_ Marinette on a regular basis now, and would have plenty of chances to see that they did, somehow, look completely _identical_.  Of course, Alya had paid attention before, but always from a distance, or, when she was close, she’d been too busy being Rena Rouge to pay proper attention to Ladybug.  Now, there might actually be _downtime_.  What was she supposed to do when they ended up, say, staking out a villain for a while, and just had time to _talk_?

She’d forgotten the whole issue, probably because it never came up with her and Cat Noir, but Alya _would_ get that chance, repeatedly.  She was bound to get suspicious.  No, actually, she’d _already_ been suspicious of Marinette as Ladybug on multiple occasions, even if she’d been joking most of the time.  The only thing that had stopped her was…  Actually, what _had_ saved Marinette from discovery?  Interruptions, distractions, _luck._ Wait.  Was it _literally_ luck that kept her secrets safe?  Was it the whole lucky Ladybug thing, or…

It didn’t matter.  The point was, now, it would be even harder.  She’d _made_ it harder.

\--

Alya didn’t really notice Marinette quietly panicking next to her.  She was excited, and notably, _incredibly_ tired.  It wasn’t just Marinette she didn’t notice, though.  Class was a blur.  She almost dozed off twice, before remembering _why_ she’d stayed up so late and getting excited all over again.

She made it to lunch before passing out with her head down on the table.

Bad timing.

\--

Let’s see.  His Akuma had already been running for five minutes by now, but all that had happened was a street brawl.  If that was how things escalated, he’d have plenty of time to go and get a drink.  They had some excellent tea downstairs.  Not bothering to detransform, since the house would be completely empty right now, he returned to his study.  The kitchen would be over _that_ way.  Perfect.

As he sat, and waited for his tea to brew, he looked around the room, and then down at himself.  He had, of course, been careful to design a house that would not look good at all with an outfit like this; After all, Gabriel Agreste, famous fashion design, decorating his house to his own disadvantage?  No, purple was not the ‘right’ color for this house.  The strong, modern lines, _and_ the comparatively 1800s design, which looked so good with _each other_ , both clashed with the smooth, plastic, purple design of his own outfit.  It was more Dracula than designer.  Of course, that was just how it needed to be.  Anyone who saw him in this outfit would _never_ think to tie it back to his real identity, where he wore neutral, reserved clothes.

Ah, the water was boiling.  He added a teabag.  Mint.

He smiled evilly, the only way he ever did when he was like this.  It was the perfect crime, and intensely gratifying.  The two versions of himself were completely different, but Gabriel had respect, and Hawk Moth could let out the energy he couldn’t as a civilian.

What could he say?  Cheesy villains, with pun-names, and no real aesthetic merit were _fun_ , and something he intensely needed after being Gabriel for a while, and that was just the _bonus_ of doing his job.  The real goal… Well.  That was more serious.

He went back up to his lair, and pulled out a chair from where it was sitting by the wall.  Sure, he could stand for hours on end, (perks of being a supervillain, of course) but why _would_ he, when this was sure to take so long?

He sat down, and looked back in on his villain.

Switch was doing excellent work, as far as sowing discontent in the streets went.  Soon, Ladybug and Cat Noir would surely arrive.

\--

Alya was asleep, head down on the table.  Marinette couldn’t blame her.  She’d looked dead on her feet for the entire first half of the day.

Marinette was a fast eater when nobody else was talking to her.  Nobody else _had_ been, either, since she’d been sitting on the other side of Alya, right down at the end.  It was barely five minutes into lunch, and she’d already devoured her food from home.

Marinette’s phone buzzed, urgently, and a message popped up.  It was a warning to all citizens that, a _riot had broken out?_   That was new.  Usually it was a villain these days.  There were no details on _why_ there was a riot, but the footage was pretty clear; there was a street brawl going on, and it was slowly spreading.

Well.  That seemed like a problem that she could solve pretty effectively.  She didn’t even need to wake Alya up for this one, did she, not for something mundane like this.  Lunch had only just started, so if she hurried…

Marinette excused herself to the bathroom, and Ladybug jumped up and out the window.

That didn’t go quite as she expected.

Midway into her jump, just as she was reaching the window, she heard a thud outside.

She looked over as she landed.  Cat Noir was there, just in front of the next window over, looking over at her.

So.

So…

They went to the same school?

\--

She looked away from him, as if trying to dismiss something.

Right.  She was didn’t like people knowing their secret identities.  She must have decided to try to forget his blunder.

\--

 _Please,_ she thought to herself, _don’t start looking through the student roster to find me._   No.  Cat Noir had kept up his end of things.  He’d fought his own impulses to find out her identity, and if nothing else, there were several grades in one school.  He might never have even seen her in the halls.  Her identity was still secure.

 “So,” she said, eventually, “let’s get going, right?  We shouldn’t let this riot get out of hand any more than it already has.”

“No,” he said, “better move quick, too.  We’ve only got an hour before lunch ends.”

They got moving. 

\--

They arrived, and it quickly became clear that this wasn’t an ordinary brawl.  Sure, there were people fighting, that was the point of a brawl, but the _strange_ ones were the ones that _weren’t_ fighting.  Some people were lying on the sidelines, injured and bloody, par for the course.  Some, meanwhile, were utterly untouched, and instead seemed torn up from the inside.  They were curled up, held small, as if waiting for an imminent blow.

Standing on top of a bus in the crowd, the scene was obviously a mess.

“Alright,” said Ladybug, “I’ll talk to one of _them,_ ” she gestured over at one of the emotionally distraught sideliners.  “You,” she said, gesturing at the fight down below, “try to wrangle _that_.”

“Shouldn’t be too bad,” he said, putting his baton away.  He jumped down onto the nearest fighting pair, and pushed them bodily apart.  “So,” he was saying as she went to her own task, “how about we _don’t_ do this, and instead…”

She singled out a comparatively separate individual.  It was a young man, who was hyperventilating against a wall.  He was shivering.

She knelt down beside him.

“What’s wrong?”

He looked up at her.  “Ladybug!  Please, help.  Everything’s… Wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

He gestured at himself, “I mean, look at me!”

She looked.  He didn’t seem injured.  The only thing visibly wrong was how disturbed he was.

“I…?” she said.

“Oh.  Right.  I guess you wouldn’t know,” he shuddered, and leaned back against the wall.  “This isn’t my body.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.  I saw the fight breaking out.  There was this weird light, like glowing smoke, but it didn’t move like smoke.  It moved like lightning, just, jumping back and forth between people.  Whenever it hit someone, they’d go crazy, just haul off and start hitting people.  Then, when the other person started fighting back, it’d move on again.”

“That sounds like a villain…  That sounds like a villain that was _trying_ to start a fight.”

He nodded.  “I don’t know where it is anymore.  I felt like I was made of jelly, and then I was looking at someone I hadn’t seen before, lying on the ground in front of me.  I had just enough time to see myself running off further into the crowd, and then I was alone.  Nobody was attacking me, so I was going to get help, but then…” He shuddered.  “This isn’t my body, there are sensations that I _should not have_.  If I stay in here too long, I’m going to be sick.”

“Can you tell me anything else, any way to pick this thing out of the crowd?”

He paused, and nodded slowly.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I think something’s still there.  There’s always this necklace.  It looks like,” he hesitated, “like a lanyard.  Like a nametag, y’know?”

“That’ll be where the Akuma is, then.”  She stood up.  “Thank you.  You’ve gotten us a step closer to stopping this thing, and getting you back into your own body.”

“Thank _you_.”

She turned back to the melee, which had significantly dispersed.  In the middle of it was Cat Noir, kneeling in front of a woman.  “Hey, are you alright?” he said.

“Cat Noir!” she yelled, running over to him.

He sighed, and stood up.  “Should be fine, just as soon as we fix things.  Probably concussed or something.”

“There’s a villain here.”

“Really!?”

She nodded.  “He’s… She’s…?  _They’re_ jumping between bodies.  We can catch them, though.”

“How?”

“They’ve got the Akuma in a necklace, and they’re always wearing it.”

“Got it.  So all we’ve gotta do-

“Ladybug…!” came a weak voice from their feet.

She knelt down, and looked at the woman.  She seemed pretty beat up.

“Ladybug…” She said, putting an arm under herself, gritting her teeth.  “Help me up.  I can still fight.”

“You don’t need to fight anyone, ma’am, we’re trying to stop the fight and catch the villain.”

Some of these punches, actually, were bruising _really_ hard.  Come to think of it, who had she been fighting?  There wasn’t even anyone around here except the three of them.

“Ladybug!” her voice was pained now, and Ladybug finally noticed the ring on her finger, it had green markings on it, in the shape of a paw print.  “Ladybug, it’s me, it’s-

The foot landed in the center of her chest, and she flew backwards.  She landed in the wall, and there was _no_ breath left in her lungs.

Cat Noir was advancing on her, spinning his baton.  He was grinning, a bit too wide.

“Thought I’d just make it obvious?” he said, tugging under the collar of his suit.  From under the bell, he pulled a bit of cloth that stretched further back.  Hiding the Akuma.  It wasn’t cheating, nothing was, but it still felt unfair, somehow.

She pulled herself forward, and he pounced, bringing around a savage strike on her left.  She brought up an arm and tried to block.  Pain seared where the baton made contact, and he was already coming with another attack.  Another block, and another.

How was she supposed to fight Cat Noir?  She couldn’t catch her breath; no way, not like this.

Another set of attacks made contact, and her arms were burning.  The only respite was that he hadn’t _been_ Cat Noir, so he didn’t know how it was done.  He was like a swordsman who loved to clash the blades.  He didn’t understand the concept of a killing blow.  That meant she still had time, if she could just figure out some way to-

A woman leapt onto his back, with a pained groan.  She was surprised, and then remembered.  Cat Noir was in there.  She sucked in a breath, and rushed as the fake Cat Noir spun around at the sudden intrusion.  He managed to knock her off, just in time to receive a fist to the face.  He turned back to her, a bruise forming on his face.  It hurt to see an expression of such raw hatred on her partner’s face, but she didn’t have a choice.  She drew back her fist.  A blue glow formed around Cat Noir, steaming off of him.  He was preparing something, and she didn’t want to find out what.

There was a flash, just before her fist made contact.  There was a shock, and then pain seeped into her face.

She forced her eyes open and saw…

Ladybug.  She saw herself pull back her fist with a triumphant grin and then felt the same shock from before.  She was beating herself, and wasn’t even fighting back.

She put up a black-covered hand, and _caught_ her own fist.  Her own?  Ladybug’s?  Names were going to be an issue.  She shoved her enemy back, and reached down for her yo-yo.

She didn’t have it.  Of course she didn’t have it, she was Cat Noir now, which meant the thing in her hand…

The baton was in its shortest form now, hardly useful for fighting.  Her enemy was getting to her feet.  Half panicked, she fumbled with the baton, and-

The front end leapt forward, narrowly missing the villain.  She pulled it back, and tried to set it to something like a sensible length.

There was a whizzing noise that she’d heard countless times.  Usually, she was the reason for it, but this time-

She brought up the baton, and the yo-yo wrapped around it.  She pulled, and her enemy lost her balance.

She didn’t want to hurt _herself_ , but this was no time for mercy.  She had to take her out of commission long enough to get that lanyard off of her, and for that…  She brought the baton down, and wasn’t able to stop the strike as the strange, lighting smoke flashed out.

“Aaaghh!” came her own voice.  But it _wasn’t_ her voice.  It sounded like someone else, and not in the ‘is that really what I sound like,’ kind of way.  She knew that voice.

“Cat Noir?”

He pushed up to his feet, and then staggered.  “I hit _hard_.”  He looked down at his own arm, and blinked.  He looked down at himself.  He half laughed, nervous.  “That’s new.”

“No time for that,” she said, “we’ve got to-

She was cut short by someone landing on her back.  Without a thought, she flipped them over and onto the pavement.  The villain was already gone by the time they hit ground.

Gone, to her _right_.  She followed the flash of bluish light, and saw someone rushing her.  Baton up to slam them in the chest, but then another flash, this time moving behind her.

She spun, and someone else was coming in low.  Baton up to block, but then _another_ flash, moving right past her.  She spun, but didn’t see another enemy coming for-

Her leg went out from under her as the first person, the one she’d given a sudden encounter with the pavement, _pulled._   She went down, and didn’t have even a second before they’d grabbed her hand.  Then, suddenly, they stopped moving.

“What?”

She looked down, and saw the lanyard, just out of reach.  Nearer, though, was a civilian, (ciVillain, more like) grabbing at her hand, or, more accurately, Cat Noir’s hand.  For a second, she didn’t understand the confusion, but then she realized; she was Cat Noir now, and the ring was nowhere to be seen _._

Then, almost before she had time to process _that_ , a red blur wrapped around her enemy, and with a yank, they went flying back.  The villain was already gone by the time they were halfway over, vanished into another bystander, who, without hesitation, rushed straight back into the fight.  She had the disorienting sensation of seeing herself fighting a dozen innocent people, each fighting without regard for their own safety.

It was too much.  She got to her feet, ready to help, but even as she did she just became a reason to question which of them would be the next target.

No.  This was too much.

“We’ve got to get back,” she shouted in an unfamiliar voice.  “Regroup.”

“Bit busy,” said Cat Noir, hitting another one with _her_ yo-yo.

“Drop!”

He dropped, and she swung the baton a full 360 degrees.  In the momentary flattening of the area, they jumped.  Or, tried to jump.  They cleared the crowd, but neither of them had remembered what they’d been using.  She’d flung the baton 40 feet down the street, and he’d…  Well, he’d done basically nothing except knocked a yo-yo into the pavement.

She could hear someone behind them, but they didn’t have time for that right now.  She recovered the baton and they tried again, this time more successfully.

\--

They made it up to a rooftop.

Cat Noir stretched out her back with a grimace.  “Now _that_ was a kick,” he said.  “Should’ve warned you sooner.”

“Well,” she said, “you’re getting your dues for it now.”

He nodded.  “That thing’s merciless.  Switch, it called itself.”

“Appropriate.”

“The names usually are.”

He breathed in, and groaned.  “I don’t envy you when you get back in here.”

“With any luck, the reset should fix me up a bit.”

He nodded.

“So,” he said, eventually, “do we swap weapons, or what?”

“I don’t- “ she began, and stopped.  Her eyes had caught on his hand.  He still had the ring.  He was in her body, but he still had the ring.  She put her hands up, and sure enough, she was still wearing the earrings.  So the Miraculous followed their holder.  Interesting.  More than that, though, far more interesting, was the suit around the ring.  It was shifting, the color slowly darkening.  He saw her looking, and looked down.  He jumped, and seemed almost on the point of trying to pull the ring off, when he realized…

“So, I’m still Cat Noir?”

“And I’m still Ladybug.”

…

“We still have to deal with the villain, though,”

“I know.  We need to lock him in, or something.  If we could get him alone, it would be easy.  The Akuma’s obviously in the lanyard, and it’s pretty much in the open, but with the crowd around…”

He nodded.  “I know.”

“We need to confuse it, or _something.”_ She smiled.  “If I’d been smart, I’d have told…  Well.  I suppose now’s as good a time as any to bring it up.”

“What?”

“You remember how you were talking about having Rena Rouge join the team full time?”

“Yeah?”

She shrugged.  “I talked about it with Master Fu, and I actually took the Miraculous to her last night.”

“Perfect!” he said, and then stopped.  “Then why isn’t she here?”

She knew _exactly_ why she wasn’t here, but she had to shrug, and pretend she wasn’t sure.  “She probably got too excited about it and stayed up late.”

“Then that doesn’t do us any good.”

\--

Alya had woken up only recently, but at the word that Ladybug and Cat Noir had recently engaged a villain, there was nothing for it.  She excused herself on the pretense of looking for Marinette, who had apparently gone missing a while ago.

Let’s see. The class period was about halfway over.  She hadn’t eaten any lunch, but that wasn’t important now.  It was her first day on the job, so to speak, and she was already late.

She vanished from the school.  Rena Rouge was on the move.

\--

His arms were now fully black, and it had even spread to the yo-yo.  He could feel it spreading.  It was like the sensation of wading deeper into water.  The weirder part, though, was just, _being_ Ladybug.  Well, not _really_ being her, but this body…  It was like being Adrien again, but with a strange, wiry strength.  Cat Noir had more muscle that Adrien, and more, for that matter, than Ladybug.  He liked it that way; it was comforting to _feel_ the muscle, even when it wasn’t in use.  Ladybug was strong, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her, _or_ to be her.  You wouldn’t know it until you put it to the test.  Same for the yo-yo, actually.  It was a dangerous, versatile weapon; that much was obvious whenever Ladybug used it, but that was only for a skilled user, which he was _not._ For him, it was just a gimmicky weapon.  Unfortunately, it had switched to _his_ colors now, so it seemed obvious that _he_ was ‘meant’ to use it for now.

He jumped from foot to foot, waiting for Ladybug, who was sitting there in his body, to come up with a plan.

\--

Coming up with a plan was oddly difficult when she was seeing a half pallet-shifted version of herself bouncing around just in front of her.  The other issue was this _body._   It felt weirdly excessive, like there was just a bit too _much_ of it, weighing her down.  Still, it clearly worked for him, so if she could just think clearly…

They were stuck in the wrong bodies, with the wrong weapons.  Their outfits had half-switched to compensate, and who _knew_ if that would do anything for them.  Their enemy was extremely mobile over short distances, and confusing to fight.  What they really needed was some way to distract it, or catch it off guard, but how were they supposed to do that?

Rena Rouge would be perfect for it; illusions usually _were_ confusing, but _she_ was asleep on a lunchroom table, so _that_ wouldn’t be happening any time-

Rena Rouge landed on their rooftop

-soon.

“Hey,” she said, voice a bit ragged, “had a bit of a conflict, didn’t realize I had to be here until just a bit ago.  What are we up… Against…”  She looked back and forth between them, eyes slowly showing more confusion.

“Did you two… Switch outfits?”

She stood up. “We switched a bit more than that.  “I’m Ladybug.  _He’s_ Cat Noir.”  
“Must be some villain, huh?”

She explained.  That took a minute.

“So, you need me to… What?”

“We’re going to need a mirage.  And we need to fight our enemy like it’s been fighting us.  We need to confuse it.  I think I have just the thing, too, but it’s going to be the most involved illusion you’ve had to do.”

“Count me in.”

…

It was the same haunting melody as before.

“Mirage…” Said Rena Rouge, and pointed her pipe at them.  There was a flash of light, but nothing seemed to happen.

“So,” she said, “how…” she played a note, and seemed surprised.  She nodded, though, and knelt down on the rooftop.  “Alright.  I’ve got this.  Good luck guys, and go quick, I’m on a timer now.”

\--

Switch would have loved to vacate the area, hunt down the two of them, and then maybe continue being _anyone_ but who it used to be.  As it stood, though, Hawk Moth had given it very specific instructions.  Blend, and vanish.  Then, when they came for it, jump them, and steal their Miraculous.  They’d be back.  They always came back.  They’d always try to fight, because they had to, which left it with certain advantages.  Namely, _it_ got to choose the venue.

Switch was blending, therefore.  The strap around its neck was carefully concealed, and it was milling around, just another part of the crowd.  It wasn’t hard to blend in, since everyone there was confused and concerned, which were both easy to copy.

There was a faint sound on the wind.  Switch looked up, and saw…  Well, this was perfect, wasn’t it, Ladybug and Cat Noir, just walking straight back into the group.  They tilted their head.  
“ _How strange_ ,” came the voice in their head.  “ _but this seems to your advantage.  Strike decisively.”_

The fighting had subsided, by now, which would make things a bit harder.  This time, though, the crowd was up around them, which meant all Switch had to do was wait for right moment…

The crowd slowly crowded in, asking for help, or _something,_ _anything_ , to reassure them.  Neither of the heroes seemed to have anything like that, though.

…And strike.

They barely had time to see the flash of light before the first strike landed.

“Scatter!” That was Cat Noir, or was it Ladybug now?  It didn’t matter.  The crowd was suddenly, frantically dispersing.  That was no good.

Switch grabbed the nearest civilian and pushed them at the heroes.

\--

He realized his mistake too late.  He caught the civilian with open palms, which put him too close when the flash came.  The knee came up into his groin.  _Extremely unpleasant._   Even as he doubled over, he put up a hand, trying to grab ahold of the lanyard, but in a flash, it was gone again.  He staggered left, and things got strange.  Haunting music seemed to slip through the crowd, like a breeze on the ankles, and suddenly, there was another of him, on his right.  They looked at each other, and then away.  Alright.  Rena Rouge was coming through with her side of things.

\--

From high on a rooftop, Rena Rouge was staring intently at the scene below.  Her fingers moved more precisely than her experience holding the Fox Miraculous should’ve allowed.  She seemed barely present, her eyes were gleaming, the pupils slits.  The second bar on her necklace beeped and faded out.  That was fine, just as long as she could concentrate.

The scene below unfolded.  The smoke flashed around, but now, even as it went faster, it did less.  Half the time, Switch would attack an illusory double, and if not, they could never be sure if the figure who seemed ready to leap on them was real or not.  It was hard to fight properly, when they could never be sure if they were flanked or not.

Rena held back a smile.  This was a wind instrument; a smile would be the wrong choice.  Now, they just needed to bring the fight home.

\--

They still weren’t fast enough.  They needed something to trap this thing.

She didn’t know what that would be, but if there was ever a time for it, _now_ was the moment for a-

“Lucky Charm!”

There was no Lucky Charm.  Nothing formed in the air.  Her hand, though, was filled with a strange, simmering energy.  It looked like a Cataclysm, but in a strange, pinkish-red color.

For once, she truly had no idea what the answer was to her eternal question.  “What am I supposed to do with this?”

The _real_ Cat Noir looked over, and seemed as confused as she was.  He shrugged.

“CATACLYSM?”

Instead of the usual result, something formed in the air.  Then, in a flash, it jumped down into the yo-yo.  He pulled it from his side.  It was burning black.

“So…  I guess _this_ is my Lucky Charm?”

He gave the weapon a flick near the present location of their enemy, and it hit the concrete with a crackling blast.  He pulled it back.  It was _still_ powered up.  His ring beeped, once.

They backed up to each other.

“So,” said Cat Noir, “it looks like I can keep using this, I’ll just lose time from it.”

“Right.  And it doesn’t destroy things like Cataclysm does.”  He could feel her considering _very hard_.  “Alright,” she said, “try to get a hit on Switch.”  
“You sure?”

“We don’t have a choice.”

“And what about you?”

“We’ll find out what this stuff does.”

“Alright.”

Switch had figured out which of them was real, and had begun aiming specifically for them again.

Even as they did, the illusions rapidly shifted, taking on the rough appearance they had.  The ladybug’s had strange lights in their hands, and the Cat Noirs’ yo-yos were crackling.

Rena Rouge still coming through.

Time to do this.  The next civilian, they kicked back, and split up.

Another one rushed in, and tried to dodge a strike from Cat Noir… But it wasn’t the _right_ Cat Noir.  It slipped to the side, trying to avoid it, and took the real yo-yo direct to the guts.  There was a _crack_ , as it staggered back.  There was a flash, but when it ended, the body still had the same telling item around its neck.

Switch was trapped.

Ladybug rushed forward, and, ignoring the force in her hand, went straight for the Akuma.  Not so easy though.  Trapped or not, Switch wasn’t out just yet.  They grabbed her wrist, as it came forward, and with a pull, brought her off course.  Her dive suddenly ended in the ground.

Her hand struck concrete, and she felt the force ground itself, but it wasn’t gone.  The concrete was linked to her hand.  She _pulled_ , and the concrete came with her hand.

The material shaped itself in her hand, forming a course to the rest.  Switch tried to back away.  The light flashed again, and again, each time a bit closer to escaping.

Well.  The power of creation was about to create a cage.

She wrenched at the concrete, across her body, and let it go.  It knew what she wanted, sliding, leaving bars behind, slipping up, even above her enemy.  She slipped inside.

It was like a stone birdcage, with just the two of them inside.  There was no way out.

Her earrings beeped.  Then, again.  Two dots gone.  Fine.  She just needed to finish this, and it would all be over.

The lightning smoke whipped out again, and escaped the body.  It rushed for a body outside of the cage…

…It couldn’t.  As it his the concrete, it found it could not slip between the bars, and back to its old body it went.  It looked at her, and the lightning began to charge again.

None of that.  She had an instant before it would have the force to take _her_ over, and she was going to make that instant count.

Grab, and _pull._

The lightning vanished in a flash of light.  A butterfly, blackened, flapped up from the confused, but otherwise ordinary, person in front of her.

She reached for her yo-yo.  She didn’t have it.  All she had was Cat Noir’s baton, but what was she supposed to…

Nothing for it, she always used her weapon to purify the Akuma before, and with any luck, that would be just the same.

Hoping she wasn’t making a terrible mistake, she lashed the baton out.

There was a crack as it made contact, and a pure white butterfly flapped out from underneath a dislodged dusting of some indeterminate black substance, whatever it was that affected the Akumas.  “Bye-bye little butterfly,” she said, and…

Wait.  She didn’t have a lucky charm.  How was she supposed to…

Well, if her weapon still did what her weapon was supposed to do, then…  She looked down at the energy still in her hand.

She raised that hand to the sky and shouted, “Miraculous Ladybug!”

The sensation was unlike anything she’d ever felt before.  The energy was usually like a warm current in the air, but this felt like trying to hold a newborn star in her hand.

The energy rushed out, and she felt her soul trying to return to her body, but the same force, the one in her hand, wouldn’t let her leave.

The energy ended.  She looked down, and…  She was still in Cat Noir’s body.

No.  Wait.  Something else was there, too.  There was a cloud in her eyes, and she could see… Something else.

She and Cat Noir looked at each other, and she had the strangest sensation of seeing Cat Noir in Ladybug’s colors.  He seemed confused too.

“Can you,” he paused, “see yourself?”

She nodded.  “I think we’re switching back, _slowly_.”

He seemed uncertain.  “Alright.”

“We’ve got to get back _now_.  We’re on the edge of detransforming.”

Well, maybe it was for the best that they knew where each other went to the same school.  Sure came in handy right about now.

“You go back to the lunchroom,” she said, “I’ll stay away.  We can’t afford to find out each other’s identity, and I’ve already eaten lunch.”

“Got it,” he said.

Time to bolt.

\--

Ladybug landed in the boys’ bathroom.

The suit had turned black again.  Did that mean this body was Cat Noir again?  She put her hand up to her ears.  No earrings.  Which meant…

“Claws in?” she said.

Sure enough, the suit vanished, and there she was.  Well, there he was, anyway.  It felt different from being Cat Noir.  She was smaller.  She half looked down, and realized the mistake almost too late.  Whatever she was wearing, she couldn’t afford to see it.  That could give things away.

“Oops,” she said, and blinked.  That voice.  It was familiar.

“What?” came another voice, this one grating.   A small creature zipped up from her side, black, with a large head for its size.  “What?” it said, at her look of confusion.  “What!?”

“You must be Cat Noir’s kwami,” she said, realizing.  Her vision was really going blurry now.  She could see the inside of the girls’ bathroom through the haze.  She could also see… Her arm?

“Okay,” he said, “I’m not dealing with this.  Also yes.  Yes I am.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, “I’m Ladybug.”

“Yeah, yeah, I pretty much figured.  Just let me know when A-  Let me know when you’re Cat Noir again.”

There was a sound from her other set of senses, which was almost everything she could hear now.  She looked up.

She really did look up.  She was Marinette again, even if she still had the faintest sense from Cat Noir’s perspective.

\--

He heard it, as if it was a mere whisper in his senses.  “Hunting’s done,” and the sound of a hero outfit disappearing.  Then, he was alone again, in his own body.

Had that been...  Was that… Rena Rouge?  Did _she_ go to this school too? He heard hurried footsteps from a room over, and then heard the door open.  He held back, and waited.

It was almost 20 seconds later, long enough that he almost doubted it was coming.  The was the sound of footsteps again, and then the door again.

His turn.  He waited, and was about to step out when the door to _this_ room opened.

“Yo, Adrien?”  That was unmistakably Nino.

“Yeah,” he said.

“You alright in there.  You’ve been in here, like, 20 minutes.”

“Yeah.  Yeah,” he said, “I’m just finishing up in here.”

“Alright man, you’d better get out of there soon, though.  Lunch is almost over.”

He stood up, and flushed the toilet.  He stepped out and washed his hands.  Back to the lunch room.

He reviewed in his mind, against his better judgement.

Ladybug was in school, _here_.  And, she’d made it clear that she wasn’t in here right now.  That meant that anyone he looked at _couldn’t_ be Ladybug.  But… They _could_ be Rena Rouge, assuming he hadn’t hallucinated that little bit of things.  Rena Rouge had only just gotten back, and _she_ didn’t know they came here, so she could plausibly have come straight back to the lunch room.  Of course, the odds of his friends paying attention to who’d just come back from the bathroom were low.  Besides, he wasn’t supposed to know that.

 _Ladybug knows,_ came the thought, unbidden.  _She_ has _to know,_ he cut back.  No.  No.  He didn’t have time for that old internal debate.  He had _lunch_ to eat, and people not to pay attention to so that he could keep Ladybug’s identity slightly more secret.

He sat down at the table with his friends and tried not to look up.  _Just act like you’re unhappy spending that long in the bathroom,_ he thought.  He pulled out his sandwich and took a bite.  Good stuff.  Actually… He looked at it again, and down the line.  Marinette insisted that she wasn’t a bread connoisseur just because she was a baker’s daughter, but she still seemed to enjoy it when he offered her a corner of his sandwich for taste-testing purposes.  Unfortunately, Marinette wasn’t there right now.  She must’ve had something else to do.

Adrien shrugged.  Maybe he’d save her a corner of his sandwich, and give it to her next period.

\--

Marinette had come back to her body, with a marker she usually kept in her pocket in her hand.  She’ looked down at her arm, and…  Cat Noir was being Cat Noir; there was a small heart in black marker on her wrist, with a small ‘Cat Noir,’ next to it in cursive.  Was that supposed to be his signature?  As she’d left the room, she’d chuckled, under her breath.  She’d have to wash this off, but it was nice to get back home and find someone had left a gift, even one like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if it's not already out, let me give you a taste of the next chapter. It's called Chat Blanc, and it's got the good stuff in it.


	7. Chat Blanc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unable to avoid it any longer, Marinette finally bites the bullet and confesses to Adrien.

It had been a long, arduous practice that day, mostly just an extended sparring session.  No Lucky Charms, and no Cataclysms allowed, just straight-up combat.  As usual, Ladybug came out on top, but today, it had been closer than usual.  She’d done her best to keep her distance and hit him with her yo-yo, but he’d managed to sneak up on her.  Twice.  It was completely ridiculous that someone in a pure black suit, in a colorful city, wearing a _bell_ , was anything _like_ stealthy, but he pulled it off, somehow.  When he was that close, her yo-yo was practically useless, and she’d had to rely on her hands.

Now, though, the fighting was over, by consensus of being too tired to continue.  (Funny, that.  They were supposed to be powered by the forces of creation and destruction, respectively, but they still got tired.)  They had both taken some time off to rest and recover.  Cat Noir had made it clear that his alter-ego had a comparatively restricted schedule, but he always had five minutes after a practice to sit and talk.

And smile.

“I guess you’re in a good mood today.”  They were lying on a rooftop, a few feet apart

“Aw, c’mon, Bugaboo, you know I’m always in a good mood when you’re around.”

She rolled her eyes, but that smile was infectious.  “I seem to recall you getting pretty upset, once or twice.”

He shrugged.  “I mean, if you want to nitpick, I’m sure I could think of a time or two, myself, but I just feel better when you’re around.”

“Must be that whole creation and destruction symmetry thing,” she said.

“Maybe some of it.”

She rolled over to face him, and without any intervention from her mind, her mouth said, “And what’s the rest of it?”  She regretted whatever impulse had brought the words to her mouth instantly.  She knew the answer to that.

“You know.”   He rolled to face her, and said “I’d be glad to tell you again, though.”  For an instant, she was filled with an eerily pleasant feeling, being that close to his face.  Then, he winked, and the spell broke.

She sighed, and looked down. _Rein it in._   “Yeah.  I know.  And you know that I know.  And we _both_ know how I feel about that.”

He nodded, and rolled back onto his back again.  He was still smiling, even if he looked a little put out.  “And we both know that _that_ doesn’t stop me from liking you.”

…

Both of them knew she didn’t feel the same?  Her mouth had disagreed with that point.  She’d practically asked him to confirm that he liked her.  Either she liked the attention, and was being vain about it, or some part of her wasn’t listening to her pleas to leave Cat Noir alone.

She suspected the latter, though she hated to admit it.

She was lying in bed, a few nights later.

The trouble wasn’t that he was flirty, though he _was_ flirty.  He could’ve _proposed_ to her and she’d just laugh it off as easily as if he’d busted out a particularly bad cat pun.

The trouble was when she _wasn’t_ Ladybug.  When she was out of costume, he was relaxed, and just _talked_ to her.  He trusted her, and was much more careful to make sure she was alright.  Of course, it made sense that he didn’t treat Ladybug like that.  Ladybug was a _superhero,_ and as far as they had a hierarchy, she was at the top of it.  That was just the thing, though.  _Everyone_ depended on Ladybug, _including Cat Noir_.  It was the same problem she faced against Zombizou; one person just wasn’t built to hold the fate of a whole city, especially not over and over.

Maybe that was why it was always nice to have him over; every time there was a crisis, people looked to Ladybug to tell them things would be alright.  Sometimes, it was nice to have someone there to tell _her._

And now what?  She was supposed to be developing a crush on him?  In the light of day, she’d have brushed off the question, but late at night, when she looked back, her own mouth had betrayed her, and more than once.  ‘ _You’ll get your kisses,’_ she’d said.  It had been spur of the moment, but then, that meant she hadn’t even had to think before saying it.

Of course, if she really wanted to get away from the whole thing, she could tell him to stop; Ladybug could tell Cat Noir to stop flirting, and Marinette could ask him to stop visiting _._   But what if she did?  It seemed almost cruel to shut him down like that, not just because he’d be sad to be rejected, but because then he’d have nobody to talk to.

He was a good friend.  She couldn’t just cut him out of her life.

 _Besides,_ came that weaseling part of her brain, _you’re obviously falling for him.  Why turn him down if he likes you, and you like him?_

 _Because_ , she’d already made up her mind.  Adrien had…  Adrien had…  She groaned again.  Adrien had been just the opposite of Cat Noir.  He’d been unremittingly _friendly_ towards her, and always had a compliment for her, and every time he talked to her, his hold on her heart grew stronger.  No.  It was worse than that.  Cat Noir _had_ been just the same, when she was Marinette.

There was a knock at the trapdoor to the roof.  She closed her eyes, and for a second almost just left him there.  But, no.  She couldn’t do that.

Besides, she always learned the most about him (As a person, not any secret information) when he talked to her as Marinette.   Maybe it’d help her sort her mind out.  _Of course,_ came the thought, _the more you learn, the more you fall for him._

There was nothing for it.  She opened the door.

\--

“What’s on your mind?” she said, as she climbed up.

He shrugged.  “Nothing, really, just felt like talking to someone.”

They took up their now traditional seats.

“What about you?  Anything new in Marinette’s world?”

She hesitated, and then, after a long pause, said, “Have you ever… had a crush, on two people at once?”

Ooohh no.  This was a dangerous topic, because he knew for a fact that one of those people was him.

“No,” he said, and then… was that right?  Every time she stuttered around him when he was Adrien, or blushed at a word from him, he felt that strange pressure in his chest.  “Well.   Maybe a little.”

“It’s not fun, is it” she said.

She was terrified of him.  He’d never have noticed it if he hadn’t already known, but now that he did, it seemed impossible to have missed it.  Every time she talked to him she was, for all she knew, risking rejection.  Every time she said a word to him, he wanted to smile, simply for the thought that she thought he was worth that.  More than that, every time she said a sentence without stumbling over her words, he wanted to congratulate her.  He wanted to see her overcome her fears, and grow as a person.  And.  Well.  If that nervous smile of hers melted his heart a little bit, that was a separate issue.

A separate, serious issue.  He’d be lying in bed, trying to get his mind to be patient about Ladybug, and that smile would be suddenly _there_ , and there’d be that same feeling in his chest.  He’d try to banish the expression, but then he’d imagine it on Ladybug’s face, and suddenly there was a dagger in his heart, and he was bleeding.  It _wasn’t_ reality.  He knew that.  He _knew_ that, but his mind would bat the idea around like a cat with a ball of yarn for hours, refusing to separate the person from the expression.  He’d fall asleep an hour, maybe two, later, and wake up tired and dazed.

Was it fun having a crush on two people?  “No.  It’s not,” he said.  It felt _wrong._   It was like being pulled in two directions, and the only defense his mind could find was deluding itself into imagining both sides as the same person.

“How would you choose?” she said.

How would he _choose_?   How _would_ he choose?  He’d had a crush on Ladybug for so long that it was almost _part_ of him now.  It was certainly part of Cat Noir.  He’d always have to choose her above Marinette, however much it pained him, or _her_ , to do it, no matter how much he cared about her and wanted her to be happy.  He’d have to do it, because if, some day, deep in the future, Ladybug ever changed her mind, could he make himself stay with someone, even someone like Marinette, when he knew that Ladybug would have him?  Either he’d leave her, or he’d break himself trying to stay.

But if he said that to Marinette, what would happen?  No.  He couldn’t purposefully draw her into something like that.

“I think,” he said, eventually, “that there’s only one thing you _can_ do.  You just have to follow your heart.”

There.  He couldn’t be more honest than that without pushing her towards pain.  Now, he just had to hope that her heart led her away from him.

 

They kept talking after that, for a long time, not about anything important, or anything interesting.  They just talked, about whatever came to mind.

…

It was a few days later.  Adrien had finally begun to think he’d gotten lucky, and maybe Marinette had felt more drawn to whoever this other, mysterious side of her crush was.  For that matter, it was lucky for _both_ of them.  Now Marinette wouldn’t have to face rejection, and he didn’t have to give it.

He hadn’t been exactly wrapped up in his thoughts, but he possibly hadn’t been paying as much attention as he usually did.  Alya had recommended a study session in the library, after school, for an upcoming test, so they were sitting around a small table, and Alya had just realized they didn’t have enough copies of the notes.

“Really, Nino?” she said, “You already lost them from this morning?”

“What?  I” Nino glanced over for an instant, and then said, carefully, “Yes.  I must have left them somewhere.”

“Alright, well, let’s go make a copy,” said Alya nodding her head away from the table, towards the printers.

What was this all about, wondered Adrien.

“Actually,” said Alya, “while we’re up, does anyone want something from the vending machine?”

Nobody said anything.  “No?  Alright, well, _I’m_ getting something.”

The started meandering, unusually slowly, thought Adrien, in the general direction of the copy-machine.

He was alone at the table with Marinette.  He looked over at her.  She was white as a sheet, with an inscrutable expression on her face.  She had a pencil in one hand, and in the other… She was holding it near her waist, but he could just make out…  Was that the lucky charm he’d made her for her birthday?

Huh.

“Gathering your luck for something?”

\--

She looked down.

“Uh.  Yeah!  Yeah, I guess so.”

There was a pause.  She tried to muster her words, but before she could…

“For what?”

She looked over at him.  He was looking at her with a quizzical expression on his face.  He could crush her heart with a word, if he wanted to, but look at him, sitting there, for all the world, just another kid at another school.  He was the flagship model for a popular fashion brand, but when he wasn’t working, he never said a word about it.  He’d been basically locked up in his home for most of his life, and the instant he’d been allowed to leave, he’d been as friendly as if nobody had ever done him wrong.  He’d only once even _seemed_ to want to do her harm, and it had been a misunderstanding.  He’d even apologized afterwards, and for what?  For _nothing._   She’d come in to this school with no friends, not even knowing who anyone was, he’d reached down, given her a hand and pulled her up.  He’d chosen, when he barely knew her, to give her his umbrella, and walk in the rain himself.  And since then?  He made her days brighter when she saw him, and he always seemed to feel the same about her.  And…  He’d done that with seemingly _no_ romantic intention, with no attempt to win her over (Though she was already won over).

She’d known him for months now.

What was she gathering her luck for?

“For you,” She said, almost inaudible.

“What?”

“I.  I just.  I just wondered if, maybe, you’d like to, I don’t know, _go out_ , some time?”

He inhaled.  “You mean,” he looked away, “like a date.”

She swallowed.  “Yeah.”

She looked up at him.  The expression on his face was painful.  He seemed, what was that, disappointed?  Sad?  That wasn’t the face of a man about to accept.

“Marinette,” he said, gently.  “I can’t.  I’d love to, and, I’ll be honest, I really do like you, but there’s, an issue.”

“What?”

“It’s just.” He breathed deeply, again.  “There’s, someone else.” He looked into the distance. “She’s, well, _amazing_ , and, however much I like you, and believe me, I do,” he sighed, “every time she even _looks_ at me, I know that if she ever wanted to have anything to do with me it wouldn’t matter how much I liked you.  I’d go straight to her, or I’d tear myself apart trying to stay.”

He looked over at her, with a pained smile, “I can’t go on a date with you.” He laughed, a single, unamused, ‘hah’.  “It’d be like lying to you.  That’s the last thing I want to do.”

She nodded, shakily.  “Of course.  It’s fine.” She could feel the muscles in her face twitching as she tried to hold back tears.  “I think I should go, now.” She said, “You won’t want to see this next part.”

He seemed about to say something, but she turned, and walked out of the room.  She couldn’t bear to hear another word from him.

\--

Adrien sat there, in dazed silence.  There was nothing he could’ve done.  Could he?

A few more seconds passed, and Alya and Nino came back, with an extra set of notes, and a bag of chips.

Alya looked at the table, and then at where Marinette wasn’t.

“Where’d she go,” she said.

Adrien shrugged.  “I don’t know.”

“Did she talk to you?”

He looked up at her.  “So you planned that, I guess.”

“Yeah.  Where did she go?”

He shook his head, helplessly.  “I think she went to, go cry?”

Alya looked at him with an unfamiliar expression.  It wasn’t quite hostile, but it wasn’t friendly, either.

“Do you know where?”

He shook his head.

“Alright,” she said.  “Study session cancelled.  I’ve got to help my friend.”

She took off, out the door.

Nino looked down at Adrien.  “Had to turn her down, huh?”

“You knew too, then.”

Nino shrugged.  “They had to tell me, but yeah.”

“Yeah.”

They sat there, silent, for a second.  Adrien’s hand, under the table, clenched into a fist.  He couldn’t just let this sit.

“I’m gonna go help Alya look for her,” he said, and left too.

Behind him, Nino didn’t say anything.

\--

So…  Study session cancelled.  Got that.  He wasn’t Marinette’s best friend, _or_ her crush.  What was he supposed to do now?  More to the point, All three of them had left their book bags behind, so… What?  What was he supposed to do?

Well.  If there was nothing he could do out there, he might as well keep an eye on things back here.

\--

She had the lucky charm in her hand.  She was running her hand over it, as she sat there, eyes forced closed from the sobbing.

She’d ducked into a bathroom, and was sitting in one of the stalls, now.  Tikki had been trying to calm her as they’d run, but she’d suddenly gasped, as Marinette had sat down.

“Marinette!” she said, “Be strong!”  She vanished into her bag.  Marinette didn’t know what to make of that.

The worst part wasn’t being rejected.  She could’ve handled that.  The worst part was that it was Adrien.  Adrien had rejected her, and he’d done it _like Adrien_.  He’d been beyond gentle about it.  He hadn’t given her anything to hate about him.  If she could’ve believed that she’d uncovered some secret, evil nature, she could almost have taken it, because after all, if Adrien wasn’t who she’d thought he was, well, what had she lost?

But no.  Adrien was still himself.  It was worse, too, because he’d admitted that he _did like her_.  She just couldn’t stand up to this mystery girl, whoever she was.  And, _and,_ he liked that girl like she liked him.  He’d turned her down, because whoever that girl was, she was part of his heart now, tied inexorably to it.  He wouldn’t give up on her, any more than she could give up on him.  _That_ , perhaps, was the worst part; she still loved him.  She couldn’t forget about him, not without tearing down so much of her own heart and starting from scratch.

Maybe that’s what she’d have to do.  Maybe the sooner she started, the better.

She leaned her head back, and sob-laughed at the pain.

And then…

There was a feeling in her hand, where she was holding the charm, and a sound, like something powering down from a movie.

She clenched her hand.  Or, she tried to.  Nothing would move.  Suddenly, there was a figure and a voice in her head, coming from everywhere.

_“Heartbreaker, I am Hawk Moth.  You have been-_

“No!” She said, eyes snapping open.  Was this why Tikki had hidden?

_“What?”_

“I won’t work for you.”

_He laughed.  “You haven’t even let me make my offer yet.  You’ve been rejected, and left to cry away your pain-_

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.  “You just want me to make me into _another_ one of your villains.”

 _“Please,” he said, “you are only as villainous as you make yourself.  You have been rejected._ I _would like to offer you a second chance.”_

“You can’t force me,” she said.

_“Force you to do what?  Hurt someone?  I do not force people to do harm.  I merely grant wishes to those in need.  If they wish to do harm, that is their own concern.”_

“And you let them.”

_“That is not my place to decide.  I grant their wishes, and in return they grant one of mine.”_

“You ask them for the Miraculous, so you can make some _wish_ with them.”

 _“Exactly.  My wish is much like yours.  I_ too _wish to be united with my love.”_

“I.” She couldn’t.  That was Hawk Moth’s reason for wanting the Miraculous?  He had to be lying, right?

She had to...  Well…  Then again.  It wasn’t like she could exactly hand over Ladybug’s Miraculous if she was transformed.  He’d have to detransform her to get it, and then, she wouldn’t be controlled anymore.  She.  She had to.  “I…”

Her face, clenched.

\--

He’d finally found her.  He hadn’t had any choice but to enter the girls’ bathroom, but he could hear her voice, plain as day.

“We have a deal, Hawk Moth.”

Oh.  Oh _no._

\--

 _“Hm…  I think, just this once, I might have to change my mind.  With a will like yours, you will be more than fit to destroy Ladybug and Cat Noir.  Therefore, I will grant you the power of destruction, greater even than Cat Noir’s.  Rise,_ Chat Blanc, _and make both of our dreams come true_.”

The darkness spread from the lucky charm, but there was no darkness left behind after it.  Instead, there was a shining, white material.

She kicked open the door, and walked out into the bathroom.  Her eyes caught on the mirror.

She looked… Well, the suit was clearly Cat Noir, but in brilliant white.  Cat ears, bell, everything.  Her body, though, _that_ hadn’t changed.  It still looked as if plain old Marinette was in there.

Well.  She didn’t feel much like Marinette now, and she knew the deal.  She had to face down Ladybug and Cat Noir.  She grinned.  Maybe Hawk Moth wouldn’t get the Ladybug Miraculous, but she was willing to bet he’d give this one for her if she could just get the Cat Miraculous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may ask, why is it Cat Noir, and Chat Blanc? The answer is, because I'm the writer, and I say so.  
> No, but really, it's just that I was already writing 'Cat Noir,' but Cat Blanc just did not feel right. So it's Chat Blanc and Cat Noir.


	8. Chat Blanc (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chat Blanc is brutal; do our heroes have what it takes to stop her?  
> Cat Noir wonders, 'Where is Ladybug.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, if the two parts were put together, this would be my longest chapter.

Adrien was running.  Marinette was about to be Akumatized, maybe already _had_ been, and he could _not_ afford to be there when it happened.

This was his fault, wasn’t it.  Except, he couldn’t have done anything different, could he, not without being dishonest with himself, _and her_.

He needed to transform, but Alya, and Nino, and, well, _anyone else_ in the school didn’t know what was coming.

Nino, he didn’t know about, but Alya was going to be in the halls, somewhere.

“Alya!” he shouted, finally spotting her going along one of the hallways.

She looked up, first surprised, then unimpressed, then concerned.  She stopped moving as he ran up to her.

“Look,” he said, “I swear, I didn’t mean for this to happen.  I tried my hardest not to hurt her, but I couldn’t-

“What is it?”

He breathed deeply for a second, and then looked up.  He could feel his face twist with discomfort.  “Hawk Moth got Marinette.’

Alya looked almost angry, and then… “Yeah.  I _bet_ he did.” She sighed.  “Wouldn’t matter _how_ you did it, with how long she’s had a crush on you.  Any rejection was _always_ going to burn.”  She looked away, and made an aggravated grunt.  “I should’ve been with her.  I could have helped her through it.”

“It’s too late for that now.  I don’t know _what_ she is, but I’ve got to transform, and I didn’t want to leave you hanging on this one.  Make sure Nino and anyone who’s still here make it out okay.”

She sighed, and then...  “Got it.” She looked up, and suddenly, she was all business again.  “You go do what you have to.  I’ll make sure people get the message.”

He ran off.  He had to transform, and fast.

As he ran to find a secluded corner, a bit of hope shone through.  Today might not be as far gone as he’d thought.  Ladybug came to school here, he _knew_ that now, which meant she might still be here.  Maybe, just maybe, she’d be right behind him

He rushed into a bathroom, and looked around feverishly.  Nobody, nobody, nobody, and nobody.  Empty.

“Alright,” he said, “Plagg-

“Wait!”  Plagg zipped out from his pocket.

“Plagg, I’ve got to transform!”

“I know,” said Plagg, “but hear me out.  This isn’t going to be an easy fight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…  Ladybug won’t be able to help you, for one thing.”

Adrien rolled his eyes.  “Plagg, I know she comes to this school, and if nothing else, I take the fight outside, and _boom_ , news coverage, there’s no way she’ll miss it.”

Plagg hesitated, and then said, “Just…  I want you to know, that if you feel like you’re outmatched, you’ve barely scratched the surface of what you can really do.  You can take on anything that Hawk Moth might be sending, _and then some_ , if you can just tap into that power.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Plagg seemed properly distressed.  “I can’t…  I can’t really…  Just keep thinking during the fight.  Okay?”

Confused, he nodded.  “Alright.  I can’t _just_ think, though, I’ve got to _do._   Plagg, claws out!”

As he finished transforming, a voice came over the PA system.

“Students and staff, be advised, there is an unknown villain loose on the premises.  Please, stay calm, and try to avoid drawing its attention.  Ladybug and Cat Noir should be here soon.”

Well, Cat Noir was here; now where was Ladybug?

\--

Chat Blanc had taken stock.  Everything was up to spec, apparently.

“You really did put in the effort to match the outfits up, didn’t you,” she said.

Hawk Moth wasn’t used to villains being this talkative.  “Yes,” he said.

“Just a shame you didn’t add any pockets, then.  It’d be a lot easier to do this if I could store the Miraculous.”

He’d never had reason to find out that he didn’t like villains critiquing his outfits.  He’d found it out now, though.

“You’ll just have to carry them,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m just saying.  Here’s the thing,” she started jogging along the hallway, “Come out and fight, Cat Noir!  All I’m saying is that _I_ would have added pockets.  I mean, that’s probably just because I want to be a designer, so I have an eye for that, but it still seems like an oversight.”

“You take issue with the design?”  Why did she keep calling for Cat Noir specifically?

She shrugged.  “Heeeere kitty kitty kitty!  I mean, I can’t fault you; it’s not like you’re a fashion designer yourself.”

His head tilted, back in his room.  “What?”

“Your designs are tacky.  I mean, just think about it; The Sapotis, you stole the design.  Frightningale; glitter and neon?  Tacky beyond belief.  Glaciator was straight out of Ghostbusters.  One sec; C’mon Cat Noir, I’m _waiting!_ ”

She continued, absently twirling her baton.  “The Dark Owl; stolen.  Robustus, not even any real changes.  Despair Bear, you just put a man in a teddy bear and called it a day.  Vibrantes, literally not even any changes from the original outfit.”

He was pacing back and forth across the room, fists clenched.  This had to be worth it.  This _had_ to be worth it.

“I’d continue, but I think we’re getting to the fun part.”

\--

What was she talking about, the fun part?  Continue what, for that matter?

Marinette… Chat Blanc, whatever he wanted to call her, was standing in front of him.  She seemed unconcerned about his presence, with the same easy smile from before.  This wasn’t Marinette.  Marinette never smiled like that, not around Cat Noir, not around Adrien.  It was confident, even cocky.

“So,” she said, “like I thought, Ladybug’s not here to help.”

“She’ll be here, soon enough,” he said, pulling his baton out.  She had to be.

He rushed forward.

…

The first thing he noticed was the impact.  She hit _hard_ for all she was Marinette-sized.  Every strike took his full attention to not get a rib broken, or his skull cracked.

That was when he realized something was off.  Yes, she was hitting hard, but that was nothing strange; lots of villains hit hard.  There was something else.  Every move was precise, purposeful.  This wasn’t your average brute, this was _skill_.  He’d block the front end of the baton, and almost immediately, take the _back_ end to his chest.

The problem was, that didn’t make any sense.

Marinette wasn’t a fighter.  She always made sure to get _away_ when villains attacked.  She hadn’t seen _him_ fighting, any more than _any_ civilian should have.  So why was Chat Blanc, who should have been based on Marinette, so good at matching his style?

No.  She wasn’t matching his style; she was _better than him._ She didn’t rely on force, even though she used it.  She was smart, smarter in combat than he’d ever been.

Something in his brain sparked.

 

The baton came back, and the idea vanished in the fight.

 What he knew was that he couldn’t fight like Cat Noir.  Cat Noir would lose, straight up.  He had to change things up.

So.  New strategies, huh?  Well, he was a cat with a few _tricks_ up his sleeves.

He tried something simple.  He dove at her, and _that_ one she hadn’t seemed to expect.  He drove her to the ground, and… _now what?_   He hadn’t planned ahead.  _This_ was why he needed Ladybug around, he thought, trying his hardest to hold Chat Blanc down.

There was nothing for it, he didn’t know where the Akuma was, so he would have to press his advantage the normal way.  He brought down his fist towards her face.  Her hand flew up and grabbed it.  Well, if one side didn’t work…  He brought the other fist down, and she caught that too.

For a second, they remained there, locked in a simple contest of strength.  She was right in front of him, masked, but still obviously Marinette.  The expression on her face was unlike anything he’d ever seen.  She seemed half wild, her features a mask of rage and concentration.  It looked wrong, especially on a face that was always so gentle.

Then, her eyes flicked up, and she huffed a laugh.

“Looks like your friend’s here,” she said, and flipped him up and over.  She rolled, and brought her feet into his stomach, and he flew, backwards and away, and slammed straight into someone.

He looked up from the ground in confusion, as he got his bearings.  His stomach was pressing onto someone beneath him, perpendicular to them.  Who was he on?  Could that be-

“Ladybug?”

“Get off of me!” said Rena Rouge, frantically pushing him away.  He flipped to his feet, and grabbed her hand to pull her up.

He turned back to Chat Blanc.

She was grinning at them, but it wasn’t friendly.

“So,” she said, “Rena Rouge has finally crawled out of the woodwork.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, I’m just wondering, mighty ‘hero,’ where you were ten minutes ago when I _needed_ you.”

She staggered back, as if struck.  “I.  I don’t…”

“Nothing to say?  Just as well.  I wouldn’t expect someone whose whole thing is illusion to tell the truth anyway.  For someone who says she’s so committed to the truth, you sure do keep a lot of secrets.”

Rena Rouge stepped back again, with some kind of wordless terror visible on her face. _What was she talking about?_   _Did Marinette know who Rena Rouge really was?_

Alright.  Alright, if he could just figure out where the Akuma was…  Something had to be off.  Chat Blanc was still talking, acid in her voice, but he wasn’t paying attention.  He needed to find the Akuma if he wanted to have a chance at this.  Something had to be out of the ordinary.  This was _his_ outfit, he should be able to see it.  The ring?  No.  But there, on her wrist, was something.  It was colorful.  He knew those colors… It was the lucky charm, the one he’d made Marinette.  That had to be it.

He sidestepped over to Rena Rouge, who was visibly shaking, eyes wide.

“On her wrist,” he said, “the charm bracelet.  We need to get it off of her, and hold onto it, until we can get it to Ladybug.”

She nodded, almost a shiver, and rallied herself.

“Oh, finally figured it out, huh?” said Chat Blanc.  “Congratulations, you’ve taken your first baby-step towards being halfway competent.”

\--

They rushed her, and Alya tried to keep the words out of her head.  Chat Blanc just kept talking, _Marinette_ just kept talking, if not her heart, her voice, mocking her, insulting her.  Chat Blanc landed a kick to her chest, accompanied by a dismissive laugh.  Rena finally landed a punch, and it didn’t even seem to bother her.  On the contrary, she turned and gave her an amused look.

Alya had always been confident, but harsh rebuke from her best friend was a nightmare.

 

“Well,” said Chat Blanc, after a bit.  “As much as I enjoy showing off by facing you two on one, I think it’s time we try for something a bit more, secluded.”

“And how do you intend to accomplish that,” cut back Cat Noir, with a lash of the baton.

Chat Blanc winked, “the same way _you’d_ do it, Kitty.”  She batted away the strike, and raised a hand above her head.

“CATASTROPHE!”  Crackling white energy formed in her hand.

“I bet you can guess what _this_ does,” she said, with a grin.

One hand full of lightning, the other on her baton, she came at them.

Rena dodged back, as a strike of the baton came in.  Cat Noir dodged the lightning.  She kept coming, though, driving herself like a wedge between them, until she stood directly between them.

By all rights, they had her surrounded, but it didn’t feel that way, as she took on both of them simultaneously, flipping and twirling.

She flipped onto her hands, feet spinning wildly, pushing them back, and came up.

She didn’t push forward, this time, just stepped slowly back.

“Well then,” she said, “the first solo interview is going to go to Rena Rouge!”

The lightning wasn’t in her hand anymore.  Of course, when she’d flipped like that, her hand had hit the ground, which meant-

She only had an instant to notice the network of cracks that had spread out towards Cat Noir, (Exclusively in his direction), before the floor collapsed.

Cat Noir _dropped_ down a level, leaving a massive hole in his wake.

Rena stepped forward, this time with fury in her strikes.

“You think that’s going to stop him?” she said.  “He can jump buildings, and that’s barely ten feet!”

She fell back as a foot landed in her stomach.

“Oh, I know,” said Chat Blanc, bringing her hand up, “but you forget, I’m _better_ at this than he is.”  She clenched her fist, and there was a sound of grinding stone.

She took one more step backwards, straight into where the hole was.  But she didn’t fall.  Something wobbled underfoot, and as she looked down, she saw a piece of concrete, floating in the air, quickly being joined by other, smaller pieces.  The floor was reforming, which meant.

Chat Blanc shrugged.  “it’s just you and me, now.”

\--

Hawk Moth didn’t like popcorn.  He’d _never_ liked popcorn, but right now, staring, half in awe, at the performance before him, he understood why people ate it.  His hands were restless.

He didn’t really know who she was, but if he ever needed another villain after she was done, he knew exactly who to track down and upset.  She was _pragmatic._ She was _effective._   She was extremely rude to him, of course, but with results like this, who cared?

She knocked Rena Rouge back into a wall, and advanced.

Rena put up her flute, and had just begun to blow that same haunting melody that-

Chat Blanc pulled the flute away.

“You see this?” she said, holding it up, “ _this_ is why you’re barely a sidekick.  This only has _one use_.  Like you.  All it’s good for is lies.  And what can _you_ do with a mirage?  Nothing.  You need someone _else_ to make it useful.  And, let’s see here.”

She wrenched, and the flute split, with a crackling orange light.  “Oh.  It’s fragile, too.  How quaint.”

The flute shattered in her hands.

“Hah!  Guess you don’t even get to use the pieces.”

She tossed it up in the air.

Rena Rouge was gone when she looked down.

There was music in the air.

Chat Blanc stepped back, and looked around.

“That’s not a flute,” she said, almost confused.  “Are you…?  Are you _whistling_ your mirage?”  She didn’t move, for a second.  “Alright,” she said, “Color me impressed.”

“But it won’t matter,” she said, “you’re still useless by yourself.  I can do _whatever_ I want, even _if_ you’re around.”  She looked around, almost bemused.  “Case in point.  How about I go to the library, maybe see who’s around?”

She started walking lazily for the door.

The whistling stopped, and there were running feet, and then-

“Don’t _touch_ him!”

The punch came straight to the side of Chat Blanc’s face.  Her head whipped away with the impact, but she turned back, lip bloodied but a smile on her face, to look at the now visible Rena Rouge.

The return punch was much stronger, knocking Rena off her feet.

“Rookie mistake,” she said, this time amiable, “letting your emotions get the best of you.”

Rena looked up at her, blinking, eyes half vacant.  She looked barely conscious.

“There’s really only two reasons I’m not going to take your Miraculous now,” she said.

What?  She _wasn’t_ going to take the Fox Miraculous?  He was about to instruct her otherwise, but then she continued.

“The first reason is that this suit,” she said, looking up and around at the room, as if at an invisible presence, “ _doesn’t have pockets!”_

His jaw clenched.

She sighed.  “And the second… _Hey_ ,” she slapped Rena, who jolted, and looked up, “the other reason I won’t take your Miraculous is because it doesn’t matter if I do.  You’re not going to make a difference either way.”

Chat Blanc leveled a punch at her again, and this time, she didn’t move afterwards.

Hawk Moth made a quiet, “Oohh,” like a man who’s just uncovered a treasure chest.  She wasn’t _pragmatic,_ she was _brutal._

Chat Blanc straightened up, and, pulling the body behind her, tried to open the nearest door.  It was locked, but nothing a little Catastrophe couldn’t fix. She reshaped the door, with the hero hidden behind it.

“Relax!” she shouted in at the unconscious hero, “you’re a hero, so you’ll probably get concussed at worst!”

\--

Cat Noir had been trying to focus on two things at once.  The first, of course, was getting back upstairs.  It was harder than it should have been, since he’d ended up in the basement level, where nothing made sense.  The halls twisted, and the first hallway he’d been in didn’t even seem to have a staircase leading up.  He’d been running around, trying to navigate this comparatively unfamiliar terrain.

He’d swear this basement didn’t obey conventional geometry, because for the life of him, he couldn’t find the exit.

The other thing he’d been focusing on was following Plagg’s advice.

He had to _think._   Why?  Plagg knew something he didn’t, obviously.  Plagg was a kwami, of _course_ he knew things Adrien didn’t.  But what?  What did Plagg know?

Okay.  Okay.  He needed to think, but about what?  What had been _bothering him._

Where was Ladybug?

That was the biggest thing.  She came to this school, and she wasn’t here.  She _should’ve_ been here.  Alya would surely have sent out some kind of message, right?

But she wasn’t here.  That matched with what Plagg had said, too.  ‘Ladybug won’t be there to help you.’  And Chat Blanc had called out for him, and _not_ Ladybug.  Why?

 _She’d_ known Ladybug wouldn’t be here, too.

Why, though?

Nothing.  Okay, no, that was fine, there was more, because Marinette had become a villain, and _that_ was bothering him.

No.  It was more than that.  It was _how_ she’d done it.

Marinette had material on Rena Rouge that could get inside her head.  She’d talked like she actually _known_ who Rena Rouge was.  That wasn’t normal.  She might have known about him, they’d talked often enough for it, but Rena Rouge?  Fresh member of the team Rena Rouge?  She’d said… She’d said, what, that Rena Rouge hadn’t been forthcoming with her secrets?

So Marinette was friends with Rena Rouge out of costume, and had figured things out?

But he hadn’t figured out who _he_ really was, and he had been around her both in and out of costume.

Wait.  Wait.  He was onto something there.  Marinette shouldn’t know who Rena Rouge was.  Marinette shouldn’t know when Ladybug would, or _wouldn’t_ be around.

He’d stopped running now.

There _was_ someone who would know Rena Rouge’s secret identity, someone who would know Ladybug’s whereabouts, at all times.

No.  No, wait.

That exact hair, the way he could imagine the same expressions on both.  The eyes.

The fact that they both had a hold on his heart.

He’d collapsed to his knees by now, as if struck by a thunderbolt.

Ladybug.  Ladybug would know exactly where she’d be.  She knew Rena Rouge’s identity.  Blue eyes, hair so black it was almost blue.

The gears in his mind, so carefully jammed to stop him from deluding himself, suddenly popped, and the idea slammed into place, irreversible.

He put his hands up to his face, wide-eyed.  He’d turned her down.  He’d turned Marinette, Ladybug, _his_ Ladybug, into a villain.  Ladybug had a crush, on-

The ceiling caved in, and a strikingly bright silhouette landed in front of him.

“Aw, Kitty’s on his knees,” said Chat Blanc.  “Praying for mercy?”  There was no calling her Marinette anymore.  This _wasn’t_ Marinette, and it wasn’t Ladybug. This was a villain who had taken her hostage.  He had no choice but to treat her as such.

“Yeah,” he said, straightening up, “Just saying a quick prayer that this won’t hurt you too much.”  There was a smile spreading across his face, now.  He pulled his baton from his side.  “You want a fight?  You’ve got it.”

“You’ve got sass.  I’ve always liked that about you.”

They charged.

\--

Chat Blanc was, honestly, impressed.  She’d never seen him fight like this when she was Ladybug.  When she was Ladybug.  She could barely remember that, now.

Cat Noir was a blur, almost demonic, now, and it was taking all of her attention to keep up with him.

Some little corner of her brain, the shrinking part that was still Ladybug, suggested that next time they practiced, she should ask where that strength was coming from to see if she could tap into it too.  She remembered that Cat Noir would be done after this.

Her name was Chat Blanc.  She was going to take the Miraculous of Ladybug and Cat Noir, and bring them to Hawk Moth.

It almost hurt, but then again, came that same, overwhelming force, she’d be with Adrien after this.  That would be reward enough, right?

She’d be with Adrien after this…

The name, which should have set her heart racing, didn’t mean anything to her, now.  There was a hollow where it had been.  That strange incongruity bothered her, but it didn’t make her stop fighting.  In fact, the strange half-pain asked to be shared.  Cat Noir could take a share of it.

Her name was Chat Blanc.  She was going to take the Miraculous of Ladybug and Cat Noir, and bring them to Hawk Moth.

Who cared about Adrien?  Not her.  _Not her._   She was Chat Blanc, now.  Who cared about Cat Noir anymore?  He was just there to _suffer,_ to feel the same pain the strange, unfamiliar hollowness was making _her_ feel.

Who knew, maybe Ladybug would finally show up after this, and she’d take _her_ Miraculous as well.

 _But.  I’m Ladybug._ I’m _Ladybug.  My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and I am Ladybug._ Marinette _.  My name is Marinette.  My name is…_

Her name was Chat Blanc.  She was going to take the Miraculous of Ladybug and Cat Noir, and bring them to Hawk Moth.

\--

Chat Blanc had gone eerily silent.  Her expression was blank.  It was worse than the insults, and the mocking grins.  He wasn’t facing a nemesis, nothing like a mirror of himself.  He was alone.

Those dead eyes stared single-mindedly at him.

The strikes didn’t stop coming; there was no sign of fatigue, or any tempo to the fight any more.  There was no moment where she stepped back to reconsider her enemy, only an unrelenting onslaught of blows.

Chat Blanc jumped back, at last, but without hesitation said, “Catastrophe.” There was no expression there, no raised hand to channel the energy.  The lightning reformed in her hand

It was times like these that he really missed Ladybug.  She’d always-

He dodged as another strike came in.  Another wall cracked and fractured.

-the brains of the operation, not because he wasn’t smart, but because that wasn’t his whole _thing_.  That was practically the _point_ of lucky charm; to give them just was they needed to win.

He was barely holding his own, and he couldn’t keep this up forever.  Right now, when he _really_ needed her, where was she?  Well.  He knew the answer to that, didn’t he.  She wasn’t available.

He couldn’t fight Chat Blanc to a standstill; sooner or later she’d get a lucky hit with Catastrophe, and it’d all be over.  He had to cut to the chase; break the charm, and do it before she hit him with a Catastrophe.  More importantly, he needed to handle the Akuma, and he needed to do it without Hawk Moth realizing what had happened..  That would be beyond failure.

Their batons clashed again, still evenly matched.  He jumped back, and began retreating, constantly.  Alright.  He could do this.  He’d have to improvise a bit, but he could do it.

He burst through a door into a maintenance room, and brought his baton to his head like a phone. Chat Blanc was after him, but he could retreat from her.

“Hey, Ladybug!  You planning to arrive any time soon? … No, no it’s fine, I’ve got her handled, it’s just I’ll need help with cleanup. …  No, no, I understand.  Look, when do want her finished up by? …  No, any time is fine. … Well, it’s getting awkward now, because I’m just dancing around her now. …  Okay, yeah, I can finish things up by then.”

\--

Where had his brutal warrior gone?  This was an automaton, and with Ladybug on her way, Chat Blanc would need to deal with Cat Noir _now._

“Finish it,” he said.

\--

“Catastrophe.”  Looked like she wasn’t in a chatty mood anymore (Hah.  chatty).  That was fine.

This was it; win or die.

He didn’t want to die.

“CATACLYSM!”  He screamed the word, voice cracking.  The same crackling energy formed as ever.  Except it wasn’t.  He could feel his hand shuddering as he held it.  Chat Blanc had ‘enhanced’ powers of destruction.  Well.  Maybe he could too.

He’d never used his Cataclysm on a person.  If he was right, he wouldn’t start today.

He made himself charge.  Time seemed to slow.  Her face showed no emotion. His hand stretched out, and the two unstoppable forces met.

The feeling was unique.  He felt the same shuddering force, but even stronger now.  Stranger, though, his hand felt glued to the spot, even as the unstable energy whipped it around.  For a second, he couldn’t move.

Just barely in his field of view, past the strange vortex the two destructive forces had formed, the lucky charm swung on her wrist, and he remembered himself.  With an effort, he reached out with his other hand, and _pulled._

Like most Akumatized items, it broke easily.  Unfortunately, whatever power that charm had, it had been holding Chat Blanc’s Catastrophe together, powering it.

He felt his back crack as he slammed into the wall.  He wasn’t out, though, and as Chat Blanc vanished, replaced by Marinette, he saw the Akuma pull itself from the wreckage.

They were enclosed here, which left them a second.  Only a second, though.  He couldn’t worry about Marinette’s wellbeing, much as it pained him.  The Akuma flapped once, aimlessly, and then whirled about, caught in the speed of his motion.

\--

Marinette’s eyes opened.  She could barely see anything, but that black figure before her, it had to be-

“Cat Noir?”  she asked.

“You were Akumatized,” he said.  “You need to transform, _right now_.  If that thing gets away, it’ll just come back later, and I can’t win this fight again.  I know, alright?  I know you’re Ladybug.  Please, we don’t have time to talk about it.”

She breathed in, as if to speak, and then nodded, silently, as her eyes focused on the Akuma, which was making its way to the door.

“Tikki, spots on!” she muttered as she bolted after it.

The Akuma was almost to the crack at the bottom of the door when Ladybug snatched it out of the air.

“Bye-bye, little butterfly,” she said, as a pure white butterfly flapped away.

She reached down, and stopped. “Oh.  I don’t have a lucky charm.”  She looked at his hand.  He was holding the lucky charm, the one he’d made for her.  A piece clattered to the ground.  She stood there for a second.  Her face slowly shifted, as she remembered.

Then, without another word, she collapsed to her knees.

\--

“Are you alright?” he asked, rushing to her side.

“No,” she said…  “Today’s been the worst day of my life...  I, well, I guess you know who I am, so you know all about Adrien.  I told him how I felt today.  He was, well, _nice_ about it, but he made it pretty clear that it wasn’t happening.” She sighed.  “Then, _this_ happened.  I’m _Ladybug_ ; I’m not supposed to be the villain.”

“It’s okay,” he said, “It’s okay.  Everything’s okay.”

She laughed, despairingly, and he heard his ring beep.  Four left.  “It’s not, though, because I’ve failed at the _other_ thing Tikki always told me.  ‘No one can know who you are, not even Cat Noir.’  That’s what she always told me, and _now?_   Now I’ve failed that too.”  She went silent for a moment.  “Whenever I purify an Akuma, the person always seems calm afterwards.  It’s like being Akumatized used up all of their negative emotions, but I still feel awful.”

“Ladybug, I-

“And, just to add to it, I got Adrien’s lucky charm broken.” She laughed again.  “I guess that’s for the best, though.  If I can’t hold onto his charm, maybe I’ll be able to let him go.  Maybe it’ll help me realize it’s all over.” His ring beeped again.  Three left.  “It’s not like it ever really started.  It was never _going_ to start, either.  Whoever Adrien likes, he likes her like I like him, and it’s not like anyone’s going to turn _him_ down.”

“You’d be surprised,” he said.

\--

She didn’t look back at him.  She tried to laugh again, but this time, all that came out was a sob.  “Sure.  Someone out there’s going to be able to resist _Adrien Agreste_ for more than five minutes _.”_

His ring beeped again.

“You must be running out of time,” she said, “you’d better get going.”

He sighed, behind her.  “Not this time.”

She tried to breathe, but her body shook, instead.  “C’mon, kitty, I’ve already broken one of my first rules, don’t make me break another.”

“You’re going to have to trust me on this one.”

She didn’t try to force him away as he sat down beside her.

“You know,” he said, “it always bothered me not knowing who you were.  Sometimes, I told myself it would kill me, not to know,” he laughed, almost bitterly, “but actually, knowing who you are, I’ve already realized that it would hurt _so_ much more for you to not know who I am.”

“Really,” she said, dully.

He nodded in the corner of her eye.  “It’s like you told me.  Not telling you would be like lying to you.  I can’t do that.”  His ring beeped again.  That would be the last one before he turned back.

For almost five seconds, they sat in silence.

“And, just so you know,” he said, “I know a thing or two about Adrien.”

She looked over at him, trying to smile.  “Really?”

He shrugged.  “Maybe a thing or three.  The only reason he could possibly refuse you is if he was distracted.”  
“Distracted?”

“Yeah.  Distracted.  He’d have to be distracted by the only person that could possibly compare to you.”

Her lungs seized slightly, but she held back the sob, and managed to say, “Who?”

His ring beeped, urgently, and he said, “Well, if you want the truth-

Cat Noir was gone.

“-it’d have to be you,” said Adrien.

Neither of them moved.  Ladybug blinked; once, twice.  She was trying to understand this revelation, but…  Hadn’t she already known?  She’d already had the thought too many times to count, and dismissed it. Trying to understand was pointless.  Her mind moved forward, leaping three steps ahead of her, but that was no good.

Adrien, was Cat Noir?  Adrien was Cat Noir, no question about it.  And… Cat Noir liked Ladybug, right?  She had to admit that he did.  He didn’t make a secret of it.  So.  If Adrien was Cat Noir, and they were the same person, that meant that _Adrien_ liked Ladybug, right?  Except…  Except, if she took that one step further, _she_ was Ladybug.  Ladybug and Marinette were the same person.  Which meant, that, if she took it carefully and logically, there was only one possible outcome.

Adrien was smiling in front of her, slightly nervous.

There was no way around it.  Adrien Agreste, the boy of her dreams…

\--

She wasn’t crying anymore.  She was just sitting there.  She’d _sat_ there for what felt like an eternity, unmoving.  He was starting to get nervous.  Then, like a light switch flipping, her face, already a bit discolored from crying, turned bright red.  Her mouth was slightly open.

She turned to look at him, with an expression he’d never seen before.  It looked almost like terror, but… Not.

\--

Everything added up.  She almost couldn’t believe it, but how _could_ she be wrong?  And if she was right…  If she was right…

Her hand slowly crept up, fingers trailing along his arm, and left itself on his shoulder.  She could hear him faintly inhale, as if he couldn’t comprehend the contact.  He didn’t make a move to get rid of her hand, and that shook her more than anything.  Now, hand trembling, she moved her hand up, until she felt the back of his neck in her fingertips, and the shape of his cheekbone in her thumb.  A smile slowly, ever so slowly, crept across his face.  He was smiling at _her_.

Suddenly, she was aware of the mask, and the covering on her hands.  She could feel the warmth of his neck diffusing through the suit, but muffled.

She hesitated, and then realized there was no point disguising herself anymore.  “Spots off.”

There he was, truly, unmistakably _there,_ no disguise, however pointless, separating her from him.  He smiled a bit wider, and it felt like she was on the surface of the sun, the light so bright it passed straight through her, but there was no pain.  There was only incalculable warmth.

His hand came up, and matched hers.  She could see him blinking away tears.

“No,” she managed to say, “If you start crying, _I’ll_ start crying.”

\--

He laughed, and this time _his_ voice was broken as he said, “I was wrong.  It turns out it also kills me for you to know who I am.”

“Well don’t die on me,” she said half-laughing, “That would be terrible timing.”

Adrien hesitated. Adrien would never say it.  No way.

He wasn’t _just_ Adrien, though.

The grin twisted, and suddenly it was Cat Noir saying “Well, what if I do?  What are you going to do, give me mouth to mouth?”

She breathed in, as if about to speak.  Her face turned red, and she stopped.  Then, she laughed in earnest, grinning wide.  “That’s got to be the worst line you’ve ever tried.”  Then, “But you know what?  No need to pass out, I’ll give it to you for free.”  He felt a pressure on the back of his neck, and then…

It wasn’t the overwhelming, annihilating force of manipulated emotions.  This was _him._ He was still there.  He slid in a little closer, and wrapped his other arm around her.

He didn’t want the moment to end.  He didn’t want the moment to _not_ end.  He didn’t want anything.  What _could_ he want, right now?  She was in his arms, and he was in hers.  What he _did_ know, though, was that he wasn’t letting go of her any time soon.

…

 

…

 

…

Eventually, mostly from a lack of oxygen, they pulled away from each other.

They sat there, leaning on each other, giggling faintly, tears on their faces.

“Huh,” said Marinette, eventually, laughing a bit harder.  She put her head on his shoulder, “I might have been wrong.  Today is looking up.”

Adrien was so close to her that she could feel his voice as he spoke

“That’s it.  Keep a positive attitude,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

 

…

 

\--

Alya had a splitting headache.  It would be hard _not_ to, considering what had just happened.  She’d found something for Trixx to eat, but it seemed like it was all over now, no Rena Rouge required.  There were no sounds of fighting, anymore, but with the school silent for fear of a villain, she’d been able to hear the voices easily.

She’d followed the voices to an old maintenance room.  The door was unlocked, and she pushed through.

The whole scene was a bit much to take in.  First, the surroundings; cracked, crumbling, half- _destroyed_ walls, in a utility room, of all places.  The lights were yellowed, and seemed damaged, from how much they were flickering.  More to the point, and what she noticed first, Marinette, her best friend in the whole world, who’d had a massive crush on Adrien Agreste for almost as long as she’d known her, was kissing said boy, who had, himself, rejected her attention just earlier that day.  This, of course, with the context that _she’d_ just been a villain recently (and an exceptionally nasty villain at that), and that said boy was _also_ Cat Noir, who would have been _fighting_ her just a bit ago.  She stood there, trying to process the scene, but then, the spell cracked, and, head still ringing, she realized, _Marinette was back_.

She ran forward, heedless of the noise she was making, and threw her arms around her.

Marinette jumped, and then, realizing who it was, turned to her.

“Alya!” she said, and returned the hug.

“Oh my gosh, girl, I was so _worried_ about you!  You got really nasty as a villain, are you alright?”

“What,” said Marinette, and blushed, “I really don’t remember anything about what happened.”

Next to her, she heard a quiet ‘Ooohhhh,’ from Adrien, and glancing, she saw him nodding to himself.

“Alright,” she said, “I need to know what _happened!_   You run off from Adrien, all sad, and the next thing I see, you two are getting cuddly?  I gotta _know_.”

“It’s, uh,” said Adrien, “kind of a miscommunication,” said Adrien, “I didn’t understand what was really going on, so…”

“Classic oblivious Adrien,” said Alya, with a grin.

Adrien looked like he wanted to protest, but then he shrugged, and nodded.

“Alright,” she said, “we’ve got to commemorate this.”  She pulled out her phone, and tapped into one of the apps.

\--

He couldn’t quite process Alya’s excitement, as she took picture after picture, some of the three of them, some of just him and Marinette.  For a second, he found it kind of awkward, but then, then he looked down and saw Marinette’s expression, one of good-natured amusement, and he decided, awkward or not, he could live with it if it made her smile.


	9. Intermission II (Epilogue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seems like the work of heroes is never done, but for now, there's some downtime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably the shortest chapter by far, but I wanted to have at least something after the reveal. Didn't seem right to leave things there.

There had been issues, of course.  There were always issues.  Plagg had done his best to avoid all responsibility for what had happened.  Tikki seemed to be somewhere between jubilant and disappointed.  Master Fu, when they’d finally explained the situation, had been almost reassuring with his worrying.  He treated it like a plan had gone wrong, but in a salvageable way.  He’d requested that they continue to hold their identities secret as much as they could.

Adrien had done his best to avoid mentioning that Alya knew who he was, but he’d had to mention it to Marinette when it became apparent that Ladybug didn’t know that Rena Rouge knew who Cat Noir was, and _didn’t_ know who Ladybug was; He’d gotten a scandalized glance when she’d kissed him, and he had the striking impression that Alya was looking for a way to tell Marinette about it.  He’d _had_ to explain the situation to Ladybug to explain why he, _Cat Noir_ , was asking _Ladybug_ not to kiss him.

Actually, on that note, the way she’d been treating him was… Remarkable.  She seemed to fluctuate between how she treated Adrien and how she treated Cat Noir.  Sometimes she seemed still half-terrified of him.  Other times…  Well, sometimes what it came down to was that she’d proven herself adept at replying to his witty flirting (witty only in his own mind) with some truly rapier stuff of her own.  The best, though, was when she was midway through a truly devastating comeback, and suddenly started tripping over her own words, turning red.  There was something truly satisfying about seeing that momentary state between Ladybug and Marinette.

All things considered, he couldn’t complain, for all it was still near-impossible to see her during the day (Too much homework.  Too many classes, both at school and home.  Never as much of his lady as he’d like.)  
\--  
Gabriel Agreste was in a slump.  He’d been _so close_ , only to have his victory pulled away from him again.  Chat Blanc, the most dangerous villain he’d ever had the pleasure of witnessing, had been defeated by a lone Cat Noir.  
For the first time in his whole career as Hawk Moth, he didn’t have anything to say as the vision of the Akuma winked out of existence.  What could he say?  Chat Blanc had failed, and Cat Noir, who’d always been the weaker of the two heroes, had defeated her, _alone_.  Of course, Ladybug had come in, but only for cleanup.  Rena Rouge?  Well, _she’d_ taken Cat Noir’s place as the one to be knocked out of the fight early.  She barely counted.

Which left him, where?  He hadn’t had the energy to make any new villains, or any new designs.  He’d come up to his room, and felt the negative emotions he’d need to make one, and… What?  What villain would he make?  It wouldn’t win.  They never did.  
Chat Blanc had been his magnum opus, and she’d failed.  If he was ever going to win, he needed _inspiration_ , something to put him back in the fight.  And where could he go for such a thing?

He sat in his office, idly tapping his desk.  He scrolled back, slowly, through his designs from the past year, and then, as he made it through them, from the past _years_.  Nothing.  
Bringing his dream to life seemed just as impossible as bringing the picture behind him to life.  
Scanning his old designs was useless.  He backed out of last year’s folder, to the nexus of all of his creations.  They went back a ways.  
His eye caught on one particular folder.  
“Hm.”  
That had been a mediocre year for his work.  It had seemed like nothing he’d done had been good enough or bad enough to be noticed.  It was, in short, the last place anyone would want to look if they made it onto his computer.  
He clicked on the folder, and then into a smaller folder marked ‘Socks?’  That year had featured no socks.  A familiar password box popped up.  While nobody else would have bothered to click this folder, it was the only one he bothered to password-lock, because _this_ folder…

Every Akuma he’d ever made, sketched, notated, commented on.  Everything from Stoneheart to… Well.  He hadn’t gotten around to Chat Blanc yet, for all he’d been meaning to.  He knew their weaknesses, their actual identities, _why they’d become a villain_.  Sometimes it was heartbreak, other times betrayal, and even, and he cracked the faintest smile at Zombizou, the desire to spread love.  
And every single one of them had failed, and he’d marked that too, along with _why_.  By now, he probably knew Ladybug and Cat Noir’s _strengths_ better than they knew their own.  Their weaknesses… Well, he still needed to work on that.  
Speaking of them, they had their own files, as did that _new_ member, ‘Rena Rouge’.  
He clicked open Ladybug’s.

 

> ‘Preferred combat range: Medium to far (Yo-yo is less effective up close), *She covers for Cat Noir’s weakness at a distance.  If the option is presented, reversing their positions could be an excellent way of throwing them off balance.*  
> Ability: ‘Lucky Charm’ *This ability is frustrating.  The rules are unclear, and it is not obvious if seeing the use of the charm is part of the ability or not.*
> 
> Strengths: Improvisation, contingencies, distance, speed, purification.  
> Weaknesses:  Close combat, Cat Noir (Relationship? Monitor further), ‘

 

Everything as he’d left it.  
Also in here, though, was the thing that had initially piqued his interest when he’d seen this folder.  ‘Grimoire.pdf’  
It had taken some time to scan the pages, but the scare where Adrien had almost lost it had proven his safeguarding worthwhile.  
He opened the file.  
Still, just like he remembered it.  Still encoded.  He’d promised himself to find one of those ‘Guardians of the Miraculous,’ but that wasn’t easy.  Where would he start?  A quick search didn’t turn anything up.  Even ‘Wikipedia,’ normally a place where people could yammer away about practically nothing had turned up very little.  There was an old story about a group of people like that, even referencing that they had a particular sanctuary, but old legends were notoriously close-lipped about, for example, _where_ one would begin looking.  
Then again… Maybe he didn’t need this Guardian to translate for him.  He was an Agreste.  He was _Gabriel_ Agreste.  
He nodded to himself, slowly.  He had drive, and a powerful desire to break the code.  If it could be broken, he’d do it.  
As he scrolled down, and down, a slow smile crept across his face.  
\--  
Hours later, long after Gabriel Agreste had finished his first attempts at deciphering the grimoire, Marinette was lying in bed.  Her phone buzzed.  
She opened it.  
‘You still up?’  
“Hm.” She cracked a smile at that.  
‘Yeah.’  
*Adrien Agreste is typing…*  
The message vanished, but there was no follow up.  She clicked back out of the conversation, sitting up.  Huh.  Adrien Agreste was offline.  Why would he send a message and then-  
There was a knock at her roof.  
She froze, and a grin spread across her face.  Well.  She shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet...  
She pushed the trapdoor open, and there, silhouetted against the night sky.  Not Cat Noir.  Well, not Cat Noir anymore than he was _always_ Cat Noir.  
Adrien smiled at her, and gave her a hand up.  
As she stood up on the roof, he reached into a pocket, and, with a wink, pulled out a small lump.  It was cheese.  
Cheese?  
Just cheese.  
Really cheese?  
Really-  
He flipped it into the air behind him.  
A black blur slipped up and caught it.  
Right.  His kwami, _Plagg_ , would only eat cheese, for some reason.  Oh.  Ohhh…  That’s what the cheese had been about.  
Tikki, who still seemed to have leftover reservations about letting herself be seen, finally flicked up into sight.  
Adrien looked over at the two chairs at the railing, and then back at her.  
They sat down, for what felt like the hundredth time, now.  
“So,” she said, “something you wanted to talk about?”  
He chuckled.  “Not tonight.  I just wanted to see you.”  
She could feel the blush spreading across her face, as she stared resolutely out across Paris.  “Really?”  
The moment shuddered as she heard a creaking, grinding noise.  She looked over, and stifled a laugh as she saw what he was doing.  His arm slipped around her shoulder.  
“You could’ve just picked the chair up, silly,” she said.  
“Oh c’mon, where’s the fun in that?”  He looked straight at her, and his head tilted.  After a second, he said, “I think I’ve already said it, but I stand by the fact that red looks great on you.”  
She looked away, eyes almost closed from the smile that she couldn’t have shifted if she’d wanted to.  He pulled gently, and her head fell against his shoulder.  
“Plus,” he said, “you practically turn into a space-heater.”  
“Stop it,” she said.  
“No, I’m serious, I don’t even need a blanket.”  
“Adrien…”  
“I mean, I’ll probably have to _invest_ in a blanket for when you stop trying to boil eggs on your forehead every time you see me, but for now…”  
“That’s just the way it’s got to be for now, I’m afraid.  You’re going to be stuck with Marinette the space-heater for a while.”  
“Well, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”  His head leaned over.

“You know, if I was transformed, I’d probably be purring right now.”  
Marinette’s eyes flicked back open.  She blinked.  “You purr?”  
“I mean, I think so?  I’m usually pretty busy when I’m suited up, but, I think so?  I _think_ it’s happened.”  He seemed to contemplate for a second, and then, “Hey Plagg!?”  
A faint, “Yeah?” came back.  
“Can Cat Noir purr?”  
“Depends.”  
“On what?”  
“Did you want to be able to purr?”  
Adrien’s head slowly turned behind him.  Marinette’s breath slowly grew uneven as she tried to stifle a laugh.  
“You mean I got to choose?”  
“Well, I mean, yeah, you did.  Trust me, a lot of your predecessors _hated_ the idea of being actually catlike.  Seriously, you would not believe the number of them that just went for black robes, and absolutely hated the idea of the ears.  I’m not saying I _know_ , but if you went for the bell and the tail, I can guess.”  
“Y’know, Plagg, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you didn’t like having a holder who’s into the aesthetic.”  
“All I ever said was that the bell is tacky!”  
Adrien turned back, and in a whisper, which, all else aside, gave her goosebumps, said, “What about you?  Do you think the bell’s tacky?”  
She opened her mouth to reply, but words wouldn’t come out.  
At the edge of her vision, she could see his eyes turn down towards her.  
“Stay entirely silent if you love the bell,” he said.  
Half of her still couldn’t muster the words, but the other half was very insistent about this point. “Nope,” she squeaked, “Super-tacky.”  
He turned away, face mock-incredulity, “Oh come on,” he said, “the bell is a fashion-forward move that is absolutely going to catch on.”  
She had her voice back.  “You’ve been wearing it for a year now, I’d think it would already have caught on.”  
“I am a _model_!” he said, “My instincts for this kind of thing are never wrong.”  
She looked up, unimpressed, “And I” she said, booping his nose, “am a designer.  You wear the clothes, I make them.  You can’t fool me with your ‘I’m a model’ line.”  
He gave her a long look, and then nodded.  “I’ll agree to call it a draw,” he said.  
“Oh, no way,” she said, “calling it a draw is what you do when you know you’ve _lost_.”  
He sighed.  “Fine.  On this one, very rare occasion, I’ll concede the point.”  
“Thank you.”  
“Anything for you, my lady.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end folks. Thank you for reading French Vanilla.


End file.
